The Sweetest Song I Know

Several years ago now, I got to be a fly on the wall for a nice stuffy ad-orientem-only priest schooling a bunch of Charismatic youth. Lord knows I’ve suffered at the hands of Charismatics, so I enjoyed the show a bit too much.

“I am gonna blow your mind,” the stuffy priest was saying. “There’s no such thing as a Charismatic rite of the Catholic Church. There’s no such thing as a Charismatic Mass.”

He went on in that theme until he was interrupted by a youth in a red baseball cap.

“Some hearts aren’t ready for that kind of Mass,” said the youth. “And we need a little praise and worship.”

“That sounds like individualism,” said the stuffy priest.

“It is,” said the youth.

“Is there room for individualism in a Catholic Mass?” asked the stuffy priest.

“Well, no,” said the youth.

It just went on and on like that.

I have witnessed many a hideous liturgical acid trip put on by people who apparently thought the Church had a Charismatic rite, so I was rooting for the stuffy priest right up until the priest mentioned the song “Amazing Grace.” He’s apparently one of those people who believe the lyrics to Amazing Grace are heretical. He said that if you sing “Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me,” you’re professing the total depravity of your soul. And if you sing “how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed,” you’re professing that sanctifying grace comes through belief instead of through baptism.

I began to be more sympathetic toward the youth in the red baseball cap.

First of all, “Amazing Grace” can’t be heretical because “Amazing Grace” isn’t Catholic. It’s a Protestant hymn. That might make it inappropriate to be sung at a Catholic Mass– some Protestant hymns are and some aren’t– but it’s not heretical. The only way a song can be heretical is if the song writer was intending to pass it off as a Catholic hymn while putting blatant heterodoxy in it. But “Amazing Grace” wasn’t written by or for a Catholic.

And anyway, does the song really contain blatant heterodoxy?

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” I’ve been praying a lot of Byzantine Catholic and Orthodox prayers lately. There’s a point in an examination of conscience I like, where we say we’ve sinned “not even as a man, but worse than a beast,” all chanted out in a baritone monotone. I like that line. It’s expressive. And it’s in no way heretical. When you sin, you’re not only voluntarily making yourself a bad person, you’re making yourself worse than the usual domesticated animal. Good beasts aren’t spiteful to the master who lovingly feeds and cares for them. When you sin, you’re making yourself like Pinky the Cat here and even worse than Pinky the Cat:

That is, if Pinky the Cat’s handlers were as good with Pinky as God is with you.

That’s pretty wretched, if you ask me. I don’t believe the human soul is totally depraved, but we’re all wretched most of the time.

And then there’s the other line. “How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed!” The word “appear” has two meanings. It can mean “to show up on the scene,” like Superman appearing to save Lois Lane. And yes, if you believe that sanctifying grace only shows up to save you when you believe in it, you’re not believing like a Catholic. But “appear” also means “seem.” Obviously, sanctifying grace doesn’t appear precious until you yourself believe in it. It appears to be nonsense. And all that assumes that we’re only talking about sanctifying grace. There are all kinds of graces. Saint Therese is the one who first spoke my tagline, “everything is grace,” and she spoke it on her deathbed while expiring of tuberculosis. For her, tuberculosis was grace because it allowed her to suffer with Christ. Whatever you’re going through, whatever there is in your life, fair or foul, if God inhabits it with you, that thing becomes a grace for you. This is true, but we rarely feel that it’s true. Sometimes, though, you and I and Saint Therese catch glimpses of how things really are. We notice how our situation has become a grace. And then– how precious does that grace appear! There’s nothing non-Catholic in that part of the song either.

And anyway, outside of the liturgy, who said Catholics only have to listen to Catholic music? Who said we’re not allowed to derive inspiration from other songs, songs with Protestant or even non-Christian lyrics? How horrible would it be if I was only allowed to enjoy Catholic songs?

This is one of my favorite hymns. I’d never sing it in Mass. It’s solid American Protestant and the people who wrote it probably think I’m the Whore of Babylon. But listen to how pretty it is:

How could you not be inspired by that? I sing it when I wash the dishes.

And listen to this one:

I certainly wouldn’t sing it at Mass. It would be completely inappropriate. But listen to those harmonies! And besides, what sincere lyrics! Of course I’ll pray with all my power while you preach, Brother. And of course the Holy Manna will be scattered all around. Lovely.

And then there are the songs that aren’t even Christian, which are just beautiful and draw the mind to Christ by their beauty. My longtime readers know by now that I’m a big fan of Sweet Honey in the Rock. Listen to this:

“Those who have died have never ever left… they are in the rushing winds, they are in the moaning rocks… ’tis the ancestors’ word, when the fire’s voice is heard. ‘Tis the ancestors’ word, in the voice of the water!” I can baptize those lyrics. The souls of the dead are in Christ, and Christ is ever present to us in His creation. It works. But more importantly, it’s beautiful. Music is supposed to be beautiful.

The world certainly needs its share of stuffy priests who know how to dress down obnoxious Charismatic youth. The world needs people to take the Mass seriously and to make sure the aesthetics are appropriate for the liturgy. The world needs people who overthink everything, or I’d be out of a job. But the world also needs music and all our fumbling, imperfect attempts to sing about the mercies we’ve received. The world needs poetry that might sound like heresy if anyone was silly enough to take it literally. The world needs as many imperfect testimonies to the grace of God as there are human beings. The world needs Amazing Grace.

(Image via pixabay)