We Rise Again From Ashes Song
UPDATE past Emily
Thursday, 3 March 2022
Every bit foreshadowed by Chris Brunelle'due south comment on my original post (thanks, Chris!), the vocal "Ashes" was given a deep lyrical revision for its appearance in Oregon Cosmic Press' Breaking Staff of life hymnal. I can ostend this update appears in the 2022 hymnal, merely I am told it debuted in Breaking Bread 2021. (I am so far by considering this song for use in the liturgy, I confess I did not detect the revision concluding yr.) The revision removes a lot of the self-absorbed linguistic communication from the verses that I critique beneath, only it retains the misleading identification of ashes as "an offering," and then prominent in the vocal's refrain.
Still, I observe it interesting and perhaps encouraging that a major publisher took the fourth dimension to consider theologically-based critiques of a popular song and to do something about information technology.
Do note that what I'thousand critiquing below are the songs original lyrics, not the revision.
Thanks for visiting,
Emily
ORIGINAL POST, dated 27 Feb 2019:
We rising again from ashes,
from the good we've failed to do.
We rise once more from ashes,
to create ourselves anew.
If all our world is ashes,
and so must our lives be true,
An offering of ashes,
an offer to you.
(lyrics from the song "Ashes" by Tom Conry c. 1978 New Dawn Music)
Catholics have been singing the song "Ashes" at Ash Wednesday Masses in English language-speaking North America since the late 1970s. Many Catholics view it every bit the inevitable choice for the occasion; I have heard more than one person claim "information technology'southward not actually Ash Wednesday" if we don't sing "Ashes." Thus in preparing the Ash Wednesday liturgy, "Ashes" gets a free ride; its popularity means information technology is not subjected to the usual scrutiny. "Ashes" on Ash Wednesday is a fait accompli.
Only what if nosotros put "Ashes" to the exam? What if we re-evaluated the song'southward worthiness as we practice with other music employed in the service of liturgical celebrations? Sing to the Lord: Music in Divine Worship, the US Catholic Bishops' authoritative instruction on liturgical music, says "In judging the appropriateness of music for the Liturgy, one will examine its liturgical, pastoral, and musical qualities. […] All three judgments must be considered together, and no individual judgment tin be practical in isolation from the other two." (¶126) What if we applied this one, three-fold judgment to "Ashes"? How would we get about information technology?
When considering a new song for use in liturgy, showtime with the text. Ignore the musical features of the song for a moment and investigate commencement how the text fares on its ain. With the glut of music published for use in Catholic liturgy these days, nosotros must whittle downwards the options, lest we drown in their sheer volume. Text provides a more than objective starting signal than music, as a powerful melody can persuade, even beguile, leading u.s. to overlook textual weaknesses. There's a reason the US Bishops list the liturgical judgment first in Sing to the Lord. And if the vocal in question doesn't pass the textual examination, if it isn't able to "support the liturgical text and to convey meaning faithful to the teaching of the Church building," (STL ¶128) then one is free to continue the search for a song that will, without inbound into the perhaps murkier work of discerning the song's pastoral and musical value.
In this initial text-only screening, I frequently find liturgical songs with lyrics that are overwhelmingly "horizontal," wherein the vocalizer addresses only the self or the gathered assembly. In event, such lyrics have united states singing to ourselves, non God, prompting the question "whom do we worship?" – the but acceptable answer to which ("God!") our liturgical songs should not wittingly or unwittingly obfuscate. Other songs contain "theology bombs," where, in the midst of an otherwise lovely piece, a renegade lyric runs opposite to clear-cut Catholic doctrine. (Yes, this even happens in hymnals published for Catholic apply; the reference to Jesus' death satisfying the "wrath of God" in Keith Getty and Stuart Townsend's popular vocal "In Christ Alone" (in Breaking Breadstuff (Oregon Catholic Press), etc.) is a perfect example.)
Alan Hommerding'southward insightful little book Words that Piece of work for Worship (World Library, 2007) says musicians should look for the creedal qualities of "1, holy, catholic [ie. "universal"] and churchly" in liturgical texts. "What we look for and strive for," he says, "are texts that are worthy of a church that bears these marks, and texts that pray in harmony with them. Conversely, nosotros are wary of texts that may disrupt our prayer inheritance or in some fashion depart from these characteristics of the church." (9)
So what most "Ashes"? How does information technology fare when we isolate its text? Turns out, non so well. Although the lyrics address God in a vertical, "nosotros-K" orientation, that orientation is weak, only clearly addressing God in the ane-line refrain ("an offer to you"), in portions of verse two, and in the doxological poesy four. And it'due south non just the song's point of view which weakens its "we-Grand" orientation; its lyrics contradict orthodox Christian understandings of how God's grace works to recreate us in the Holy Spirit (should we choose to cooperate with it) during Lent. Departing from Psalm 104'south vertical supplication to God for renewal ("Transport forth your spirit, they are created/and you renew the face of the earth"), "Ashes" claims: "We rise again from ashes, to create ourselves anew" (emphasis mine). Although by verse four the song brings itself into alignment with Cosmic pedagogy, finally pinning praise on the Spirit "who creates the globe afresh," the more prominent lyric has washed its damage. The vocal'due south emphasis on our own personal agency in making change in our lives, with no (or weak, or inconsistent) reference to God, smacks more of the self-assistance pop psychology of the mid-twentieth century than of the indelible inheritance of our Judeo-Christian tradition. This overly self-referential grapheme is a mutual flaw in modern North American liturgical music texts – one to watch out for.
Sadly, that is not "Ashes'" only textual problem, or arguably its worst. Also some unintelligibility of insight in lines five and six above, the song hinges on a repeated refrain ("An offering of ashes, an offering to yous") which gives a confused and inaccurate explanation of why we wear ashes on our caput this kickoff day of Lent. To sympathize its failings, one must know just a petty almost the symbolic utilize of ashes in the Catholic tradition. It is a practice carried over from Hebrew scripture and pagan antiquity equally an expression of sorrow for sin (Adolf Adam, The Liturgical Year, 97). Ashes, however, are not employed as an offering to God in Christianity. We offer bread and wine equally symbols of our own transformation into the Body and Claret of Christ. (These are sometimes accompanied by incense, which symbolizes our offerings and prayers rising upwards to God, just is besides not, in itself, an "offering".) Christ offers himself every bit an unblemished, eternal, Paschal sacrifice to take away the sins of the globe. But we don't offer ashes to God. (What a paltry offer that would be! God gives usa his just begotten Son, and in turn nosotros requite him… last year'south burnt palm fronds? Yuck.)
Worse, this "offering" lyric, peculiarly in its emphasis through repetition, obscures the actual, coherent, meaningful symbolism in our tradition of wearing ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday. As Hommerding says above, information technology "disrupts" a particular deposit of our prayer inheritance as Catholics. To accurately empathize the symbolism of ashes on Ash Midweek, turn instead to the second choice for the prayer of blessing (non offering!) over the ashes:
O God, who desire non the death of sinners,
but their conversion,
mercifully hear our prayers
and in your kindness exist pleased to bless + these ashes,
which we intend to receive upon our heads,
that we, who admit we are but ashes
and shall render to dust,
may, through a steadfast observance of Lent,
gain pardon for sins and newness of life
after the likeness of your Risen Son.
(Roman Missal, Third Edition, 210; emphasis mine)
The second of the two provided versicles which the minister says to each penitent while administering ashes conveys their symbolic meaning even more than accessibly: "Remember that yous are grit, and to dust y'all shall return." (RM3, 211) And we article of clothing this symbol of our mortality on our foreheads, a function of the body long associated with spiritual consciousness. What better inspiration to be faithful to our Lenten promise to strive for greater holiness in this life than this physical sign – which nosotros are assuming enough to wear, all twenty-four hour period, in public! – that our time in this world is limited, that we must become spiritual rather than only physical beings, while we can. Ashes on our foreheads are not an offering to God, though this interpretation may feel more comfy. Rather, ashes challenge and remind united states that the fourth dimension for discipleship is now, that equally Jesus says, "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand." (Mark one:15)
I have presented these objections to the song "Ashes" to catechists, pastoral liturgists and musicians many times, sometimes as an instance of how one tin can apply theological preparation in a practical manner. But I acknowledge to doing so also in the promise that church musicians will discontinue their use of this song in favor of another slice from a growing canon of very adept alternatives (suggestions: Schutte's "Ashes to Ashes," Alonso'due south "Sign U.s. With Ashes" and Tate's "Remember You lot Are Dust"). Fifty-fifty as musicians appreciate the run a risk to re-assess the song, some cull to keep "Ashes" on the hymn board. "It's the only time we sing information technology all year," they argue, every bit if knowingly declining to observe best practices is excusable as long equally infrequent (effort that in a healthcare setting).
Just I've heard some other, more insidious reason for not deleting "Ashes" from the Ash Wednesday playlist, and it represents, to some, the importance of the pastoral aspect of evaluating liturgical music. "People dear that vocal! They all sing forth!" While it is true that well-loved liturgical songs engender participation, this does not mean that inside the texts of such songs, anything goes. Equally Sing to the Lord advises, we may not judge the pastoral qualities of the song in isolation from its liturgical value. And as it happens, with "Ashes," the so-called pastoral value of the song is more than complicated than how well it gets people to sing. True confession: as an undergraduate music minister, I really wanted to plan "Let Information technology Be" by the Beatles on a Marian feast day. I idea it would be so relevant – that people would sing it, because they already knew it! Thankfully, my Newman Center managing director would not permit information technology. He knew – equally I do at present – that music for liturgy must practice more than engender participation. It must course u.s. not into any "body," merely into the Trunk of Christ.
How does "Ashes" form u.s.a.? There is an ancient liturgical axiom, lex orandi, lex credendi, which ways "the law of praying is the law of assertive." It served equally a reminder in the Patristic era to look toward the Church's ancient, apostolic prayer tradition as a source of orthodoxy. Fifty-fifty today, the phrase bespeaks ritual'southward detail, anthropological power to inform and norm the beliefs of those who routinely participate in it. The phrase means that I can teach and blog all twenty-four hour period about what those ashes on our foreheads mean, but you'll learn more virtually them, and at a deeper level of consciousness, through what is said (and sung) about them in a ritual context.
Ironically, this ways "Ashes" fails the pastoral judgment as well, because its very popularity and honey, fait accompli status in some communities threatens to unintentionally assimilate the faithful to a self-obsessed dominant culture which values symbols that bring condolement (even unintelligibly) over those which challenge. In programming it year after year without reflection or re-cess, we ingrain in Catholics 2 false ideas: 1. that they themselves upshot their own spiritual renewal in Lent, and two. that our ashes are an "offering" to God. This is perhaps its worst flaw, for ashes are a powerful sacramental sign which, properly understood, reorients us – reminds us to apologize while at that place is time.
Feel complimentary to share your own thoughts about "Ashes" in the comments. Do you still hear it every Ash Wednesday where you worship? Why or why not, do you lot suppose?
Lent begins on Ash Midweek, March half dozen, 2019. My prayers and blessings are with yous and yours for a transformational Lenten season!
Source: https://liturgyandlife.com/an-offering-of-what-re-assessing-the-song-ashes/
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