by Fred Moleck
Women Hymnists
At the end of this week I’ll be at St. Olaf’s Catholic Church in Minneapolis giving a presentation to their yearly assembly on liturgical renewal.This year’s subject is on the formative power of language. The study day is entitled “Musical Ways with Words: The Theology and Application of Texts in Our Liturgy.”
The originator of the term is the host, Dr. Lynn Trapp, the nationally recognized organist, pianist, and director of music at the church.
In addition to all of these activities, he has high competency as liturgist and liturgical scholar, to say nothing of his compositions, nine of which GIA has published thus far.
Yes. The parish is very blessed to have him. The parish is equally blessed to have a marvelous worship space, a Lively-Folger pipe organ, and enlightened clerical leadership.
See . . . all that time you were probably thinking that there is no parish church in the Americas that has all the crucial elements for vivid worship that never sacrifices quality for questionable popularity.
One of the suggestions Lynn gave me is to explore the need to examine the Lectionary as the source for all planning of the liturgy. Of course, many of us have been doing just that for well over thirty years now.
In my collecting material for the hymn section of the morning’s study, I researched a number of hymn texts that reflected the readings of the day at Sunday or daily Mass.
There are numerous sources. (Of course, I wasn’t that astounded, since every publisher of music for Catholic liturgy has a reference journal that is helpful to the parish musician.)
. . . And don’t forget the GIA Quarterly!
As another aside, if you paid attention when you hit my column, “TableTalk,” you know that I include a sidebar, “Hymn du Jour” for the relevant Sunday, which suggests a hymn for that Sunday.
In other words, music ministers who work in and for Roman Catholic worshiping communities have the opportunity to evangelize the Scripture by their choices of hymns for every Sunday and feast.
When I began sifting through hymn texts and tunes I encountered the names of friends such as the usual suspects of Benedictine Sister Dolores Duffner and Mercy Sister Suzanne Toolan. I happily came across a few others whom I know, but they might be new to some of you.
Many of you already know the works of Ruth Duck, such as the familiar “As a Fire Is Meant for Burning” and “Abundant Life.”
Sylvia Dunstan also comes to mind with her “All Who Hunger, Gather Gladly” and the masterpiece “You, Lord, Are Both Lamb and Shepherd” (Christus Paradox).
One hymnist new to me did surface in my perusal of texts of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries—Shirley Erena Murray, born 1931, a native of New Zealand.
She has been named as one of the big three “Women Hymn Writers” by the United Methodist Church.
Her texts address the grave issue of life in the twenty-first century—ecology. Probably the most widespread text of hers is “Touch the Earth Lightly,” which GIA has issued with music composed by Antonio Alonso.
It also appears as #739 in the 2006 Evangelical Lutheran Worship, the official worship book of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.
These women hymnists have made an indelible mark on the worship of contemporary Christians. They are not the first in history.
To the best of my knowledge the first evidence of a woman composer of hymn texts is Hildegard of Bingen in the 1200s.
It wasn’t until the nineteenth century when women writers emerged with new strength. There was Julia Ward Howe with the text for the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” There was Jane Stuart Smith with “Nearer My God to Thee.”
There was Catherine Winkworth, who translated the German texts of Lutheran chorales
But the greatest of all of them was Fannie Crosby, the supreme hymnist of the 1800s (1820–1915). One of her hymns you may know begins “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of rapture divine.”
But what you may not know is that she wrote over eight thousand texts. Yes, eight thousand—it is not a typo. She was blind. She was known also for her preaching and public speaking.
I wonder how close to eight thousand any one, two, or three of our present-day hymnists will come. I will never know. But you might.
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@comcast.net