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Showing posts with the label singing

Whispers in the Pew, Part 2

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When my son Paul was a toddler, his favorite book was “The Pig in the Pond.” It’s one of those books where each page complicates the plot by adding a farm animal and, of course, the sound it makes. The first time I read the book aloud, I mimicked the animal sounds with gusto and enhanced the experience by shouting and jumping at the appropriate times. Paul was hooked, and I was doomed: from then on—no matter how exhausted I was or how many times I had read the book that evening—that story required hugely energetic noises and movements. The way we share stories matters. At every Mass, we share our story. The Liturgy of the Word invites us into Jewish Scripture, the Psalms, the letters of the apostles, and the Gospel. Every Sunday reminds us of our universal human story: we are created tenderly by God, but we are not God. Because we tend to sin, God lovingly sent his Son into the world to accompany us, teach us, suffer for us and save us. This is our story. And the way we sh

Praying with Music

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Come! Let us sing to the Lord and shout with joy to the rock who saves us. Let us approach him with praise and thanksgiving and sing joyful songs to the Lord. Psalm 95:1-2 "Americans spend more money on music than on sex or prescription drugs." "There is no known culture now or anytime in the past that lacks [music], and some of the oldest human-made artifacts found at archaeological sites are musical instruments." Both of these provocative lines come from books written by Dr. Daniel J. Levitin. The first is from his 2006 best seller This Is Your Brain on Music: the Science of a Human Obsession , and the second is from his more recent book (2008), The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature . Once a professional musician, sound engineer, and record producer, Levitin is now a neuroscientist who runs the Laboratory for Musical Perception, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University. In The World in Six Songs, Levitin

Here I Am To Worship

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by Ann Chapin We sang this worship song at a mass a week ago and now it plays in the back of my mind almost  continually. The words and melody are not in my everyday conscious mind but when I stop talking, reading, writing or even as soon as I wake-up, there it is playing within me. It as if my subconscious, my inner spirit is singing these words to God. . This is the sort of hymn that I love. I really don’t want to sing about God or about what we are going to do for him. No, I need to sing TO God, heart to heart, spirit to spirit.  . Perhaps  God is giving me a small taste of what Jesus promised us when he said in John 4: 23,24: 23  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.   24  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” continue>