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HYMN: Te Deum, Hymn of Thanksgiving
author unknown O God, we praise you, and acknowledge You to be the supreme Lord. Everlasting Father, all the earth worships you. All the angels, the heavens, and all angelic powers, All the cherubim...
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HYMN: I Need Thee Every Hour, by Annie Sherwood Hawks
I need Thee every hour, most gracious Lord; No tender voice like Thine can peace afford. Refrain: I need Thee, oh, I need Thee; Every hour I need Thee; Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to Thee. I...
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HYMN: Sweet Hour of Prayer, by William W. Walford
Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer, That calls me from a world of care, And bids me at my Father’s throne, Make all my wants and wishes known! In seasons of distress and grief My soul has often...
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HYMNS: The Irish Book of Hymns, by Pádraig Ó Macháin
From Treasures of Irish Christianity: People and Places, Images and Texts, Salvador Ryan and Brendan Leaky, editors The Liber Hymnorum, the Book of Hymns, survives in two manuscript copies from the...
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POETRY: The Eucharistic Hymns Of Thomas Aquinas
Pange Lingua Gloriosi Corporis Mysterium Tell, tongue, the mystery of the glorious Body and of the precious Blood, which, for the price of the world, the fruit of a noble Womb, the King of the Nations...
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POETRY: Antiphons, by Michael Guite
In Memory of Andrew Dickson Hope is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. ....
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SOUL STRUCTURE: Soullessness, or the importance of hymnody
Perhaps from the very minute that man found his way to the concept of the soul the argument began: can man have no soul? And I will dare to say that universally the answer is an emphatic, NO! So I...
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HOPE: The Singing Place, by Gene Logsdon
From The Plain Reader Riley and Sooz had helped weed the garden rows with more alacrity than usual, because Grandmaw had promised to take them to the Singing Place along the creek if there were time...
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PRAYER: Ultán’s Hymn
From Celtic Spirituality Brigit, woman ever excellent, golden, radiant flame, Lead us to the eternal kingdom, the brilliant, dazzling sun. May Brigit guide us past crowds of devils, May she break...
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NATURE: Earth Music, by David James Duncan
From Portland Magazine I hold the thing we call “nature” to be the divine manuscript. I hold the infinite wilds to be the only unbowdlerized book we possess of the Authorship that gives and sustains...
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MARY: Sing And Proclaim All Days, by Justin Lang, O.F.M.
From Mary: Images of the Mother of Jesus in Jewish and Christian Perspective The fundamental liturgical structures of the Marian feasts communicate first of all an atmosphere that mystically envelops...
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MUSIC: To What End Beauty? by Thomas H. Troeger
From: Music As Prayer Some time ago, I read a book review about the varied ways Beethoven and his music have been viewed in different eras. Although I have lost the review, I have never forgotten its...
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MUSIC: The Stone Age Ancestors Of Organists by Thomas H. Troeger
From: Music As Prayer In an article entitled “Flute Music Wafted in Caves 35,000 Years Ago,” archaeologists describe flutes discovered in southwestern Germany. One is a bone flute with five finger...
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MUSIC: Music That Can Never Be Recorded by Thomas H. Troeger
From: Music As Prayer I recall a cartoon I saw nearly forty years ago. A youngster is listening to a symphony orchestra in a concert hall and turns to his parents to observe: “It’s just like...
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MUSIC: The Piece You Thought You Would Never Play by Thomas H. Troeger
From: Music As Prayer Can you think of a piece of music that you did not like when you first sought to play or sing it, but now it is one of your favorites? Sight reading it, you got only half the...
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MUSIC: How Beautiful And Astounding Are The Feet by Thomas H. Troeger
From: Music As Prayer Many years ago I was president of the Denver Bach Society, a group that sponsored several concerts each year featuring the music of J. S. Bach. In addition to full-scale...
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MUSIC: The Freedom Of Constraint by Thomas H. Troeger
From: Music As Prayer There are notes our voices cannot reach and our instruments cannot play. Even the king of instruments is not the king of every sound. Any one organ has only so many pipes. To...
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MUSIC: Silence As The Prelude to Sound by Thomas H. Troeger
From: Music As Prayer I recall reading an article in the newspaper about an organ that was rescued from destruction. The instrument was moved from one church and rebuilt by another church that had not...
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MUSIC: The Rhetoric Of Breath by Thomas H. Troeger
From: Music As Prayer I once attended a concert and master class featuring soprano Emma Kirkby, one of the preeminent singers of renaissance and baroque song, accompanied on lute by Jakob Lindberg....
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MUSIC: Before The First Note—Getting Centered by Thomas H. Troeger
From: Music As Prayer Whenever I am about to give a sermon or lecture or perform on the flute, I first need to get “centered.” Conductors and organists know all about this. Think of choir rehearsals....
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