THOSE WERE THE DAYS

In the Winter 2007 edition of GIA Quarterly, there is a brief "Nunc Dimittis" article on page 8 for Nancy Bannister, who died of cancer last October at the age of 64. With that article was a 1976 picture of Daniel Reuning handing Ms. Bannister an autographed copy of Worship II.

Yes - Worship II! Those were the days! Now THAT was a book with very few flaws - lose some of the Sydney Carter/Shaker stuff and BAM! In 1975 that was the best Catholic hymnal in the United States in print at that time. Almost every hymn (stress on "Almost") was useful. There was no dumbing down of texts, none of that inclusive language crap to contend with. The hymnal's preface clearly stated that the so-called translation from English to English is a regrettable practice and hymn texts are poetry and not conversational English.

Now, IF in the event GIA should come up with a Worship IV (Worship III is still quite good, but they went totally against what they had stated in the preface of its predecessor about language), I'd love to see them use those principles from 1975 once again. God only knows if a Worship IV would happen, since they seem to be too engrossed in pushing their Gather products (especially the new softcover version of their newest hymnal - Gather Reprehensive Second Edition).

Peace,
BMP