GATHER AND REMEMBER

I can remember on the RPInet message boards a while back (probably about a year or so ago at least anyways) a discussion thread on the song Gather and Remember. The text was written by OCP's own Owen Alstott. The tune is the beloved "Finlandia" by Jean Sibelius (1865-1957).

This is one of three pieces that the choir at St. Joan's in Cumberland sang this morning.

If I remember correctly, some of us started looking at the text as a celebration of the so-called "spirit of Vatican II". It is for that reason that I feel that, though Mr. Alstott has written some very good works, this, I fear, is not one of them.

For copyright reasons, I will not post the text here. However, one can access it here. Check it out and let me know what you think. I for one don't think that celebrating the so-called "relief from the dark ages" via "the spirit of Vatican II" is something we should be singing about at Holy Mass.

Peace,
BMP

THIS MONTH'S WTF AWARD

...goes to the English clergy who get their rocks off of bastardizing the texts of the tried, tested, and true Christmas carols.

Story from The Telegraph / RSCT to Argent (who gets a million points for proper use of the phrase "Idiots on Parade") / Snarky remarks mine.

Enduring favourites such as Hark the Herald Angels Sing and God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen are being altered by clergy to make them more "modern and inclusive".

But churchgoers say there is no need to change the popular carols and complain that the result is a "festive car crash" if not everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.

It comes just a day after a Church of England vicar banned his congregation from singing O Little Town of Bethlehem because he believed its words do not reflect the suffering endured by modern residents of Jesus's birthplace.

Another clergyman has rewritten the Twelve Days of Christmas to include Aids victims, drug addicts and hoodies.

Tell him to save it for the next support group meeting. He'll need all the support he can get after that!

Steve Goddard, co-editor of the Christian website Ship of Fools, which is running a competition to find the worst example of a rewritten carol, said: "It's a festive car crash.

"Half the congregation sing familiar words from memory, while the rest stumble over revised alternatives. Our readers are telling us straight – for some new versions there should be no room at the inn."

Among the "theologically-modified, politically-corrected" carols encountered by visitors to the website are Hark the Herald Angels Sing in which the line "Glory to the newborn King" has been replaced by "Glory to the Christ child, bring".

WTF? Christ is no longer a King? He sure as hell isn't a queen, nor a jack for that matter. So that leaves the King.

The well-known refrain of O Come All Ye Faithful – "O come let us adore Him" – has also been changed in one church to "O come in adoration", both changes apparently made for fear the original was sexist.

"[One reader] wrote in asking if the original line was considered too gender-specific," Mr Goddard said. "But as he rightly pointed out, Jesus wasn't hermaphrodite, neither was he a girl."

But yet, certain clergy want to castrate him, and probably wish to be castrated themselves.

Churchgoers at one carol service will not be allowed to sing the words "all in white" during Once in Royal David's City in case they appear racist, while another cleric has removed the word "virgin" from God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.

Click here for another alteration of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen that was made last year, exclusively for Christus Vincit ANYWHERE (so yes, the alteration was, and still is, merely a joke). It was intended for a segment called Don't Do This at Church!

Real men don't bastardize Christmas carols, except for comic purposes that is!
Peace,
BMP

Himmelfahrt Christi -- Ascensio Domini -- Ascension Day

When I was in preschool, my mother ordered a Reader’s Digest history book for me through the mail entitled “Great People of the Bible and How They Lived.” I still have it. It sits with its torn dust cover on my study shelf next to my 1912 edition of the Luther Bible, the Biblia Vulgata, The Book of Concord, the Oxford Bible Dictionary, the Jerome Commentary, the Documents of Vatican II, and other works of Biblical and liturgical scholarship. Of course at that young age, I couldn’t read much at all, but I could look at the pictures and I welcomed when an adult would read the text to me. The entire book had been read to me at multiple sittings who knows how many times. My mother spent much time with me reading the text and discussing the photographs of the Holy Land that corresponded to the historical narratives. I knew the book so well, that I was eventually able to tell the story of the pictures without the text. It was one of my favorite books. This history book along with Bible readings and a book for children that contained re-tellings of Biblical stories was the beginning of a life-long fascination and study of Scripture, Church History, and naturally, music. World History, and especially Church history, were (and still are) vitally important: knowing this information revealed who exactly we were, where we had come from, and why we believe as we do.
I was thumbing through my copy of Great People the other day, and a little slip of paper floated out. The note had purple-inked, hand-written mimeograph letters of a hymn text. Number 657 in the Lutheran Hymnal, verse 1: Beautiful Savior. This slip of paper was about 31 years old. It was prepared by my first grade teacher, Mrs. Strothmann, at First Lutheran School in Little Rock. This had been a memory work assignment. Mrs. S. would prepare these sheets for us frequently. Christian prayers, countless hymn verses, Scripture verses, were all memory assignments. We took home the slips of paper, memorized them, then stood up in class and recited them. Beautiful Savior you may know as “Fairest Lord Jesus”. It’s sung to its own chorale tune, Schönster Herr Jesu. The hymn came up frequently at school, both in daily classroom devotion at the beginning of the day and in all-school Matins. Mrs. Strothmann had the same outlook on early religious education as did my parents: start the trend early to build an interest in the heritage and history. I remember Mrs. Strothmann telling the story of Martin Luther using a felt board with big fabric cut-outs of all the characters. It was spellbinding! These lessons were underscored with music by singing verses of the chorales we had memorized.
Last Sunday we celebrated Ascension Day. The choral anthem at the offertory was none other than a rapturous setting of the tune Schönster Herr Jesu with the appropriate “Beautiful Savior” text. I was so excited to sing the tune I had known since before I could even sound out letters to read the words. This hymn, a profound act of praise, evoked memories of many people whose collective invaluable actions had brought me to this very point, standing in these choir stalls on the Feast of the Ascension singing one of the loveliest hymns of praise ever written. Back home, from my family’s pew in the church, I had a perfect view of the right transept window which featured a depiction of the Good Shepherd. I included a photo of the window (note that the color surrounding the window is the color of the church cookbook from which I scanned the shot. The actual church walls are not fuchsia!) On either side of the shepherd, were panels with undulating vines, that reminded me of cuttings of ivy my mom had in little bottles on the kitchen window sill. The window was full of growth, burgeoning nature! Above these central panels, were symbols integral to our faith, integral to nature itself: the Chalice and the Host – The Sacrament of the Altar, the 10 Commandments – The Law of God, and the Dove of Peace – In the Old Testament, the messenger sent to Noah signaling the rebirth of vegetation after the flood symbolizing our trust in God and in the New Testament, the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the God’s Church. Above the Shepherd, the Word of God made flesh, in the uppermost circle of the window, is the eternal Word of God, Holy Scripture. What a splendid gift this hymn is! What a joy it was to be given these memories and to transform them into a musical gift to be returned to our Lord at the offertory as an act of thanksgiving! Here is the hymn text, if you are not familiar with it:

Beautiful Savior, King of Creation
Son of God, and Son of Man!
Truly I’d love Thee, Truly I’d serve Thee,
Light of my soul, my Joy, my Crown.

Fair are the meadows, Fair are the woodlands,
Robed in flow’rs of blooming Spring;
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer;
He makes our sorr’wing spirit sing.

Fair is the sunshine, fair is the moonlight,
Bright the sparking stars on high;
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer,
Than all the angels in the sky.

Beautiful Savior, Lord of the nations,
Son of God, and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, Praise, adoration,
Now and forevermore be Thine! Amen.

Above the high altar in the church of my childhood there is a 3 paneled window which shows in its center the ascending Christ, hands outstretched as if presenting the massive altar in the sanctuary below reminding us that from it by the eating and drinking his Body and Blood in Holy Communion, he is indeed always with us: Glory and honor, praise, adoration, now and forevermore be Thine!

Good Friday: Think Outside The Box

A number of years ago I attended a talk given by a local priest at a training session for a social outreach ministry. I’ve always enjoyed this priest’s sermons when I played at his Masses from time to time for various occasions. He tends to be very matter of fact and often thinks outside the box (obviously a trait I admire). His portion of the training was integral to the day’s session, as we would be working with persons in Lafayette who were living with a terminal illness. Needless to say, the preparation and the work required a spiritual component, and this was it.
At some point in the talk, Father B. started talking about sacrifice, and naturally mentioned the typical sacrifices associated with Lent: giving up something, usually a favorite food, sometimes a favorite activity or hobby, maybe a bad habit. His sacrifice was rather different, though. At the time, was shocked by his charge to go ahead and eat meat on Friday, eat whatever you want! Think about a different sacrifice, he suggested. Try to live the Our Father. Do it every day, not just on Fridays. Interesting twist, isn’t it? Something actually a lot harder to do than to forgo that bologna sandwich. Father B. was wise to the situation: usually we just don’t eat the meat off the buffet, but pile our plates with more of the meat-less sides. No steak means three potatoes instead, and veggies, etc. No dessert usually means having a couple melon balls or an apple. But this task: live the Our Father. Mean what we pray and, the hard part, pray what we mean. In other words, going meatless for 5 days isn’t much a sacrifice to us moderns. Rendering praise to God may very well be. Forgiving others most definitely is a challenge most times. How can God’s kingdom be arranged here on earth? What can we do? Can we conform to God’s will? What can we do to avoid temptation? It might not always be possible, but we can think about it, perhaps. How often do we call upon the Lord in difficult times? Depending on the person, some or all of these tasks would rank on various difficulty levels.
Usually, preparing the chants for Holy Week and studying their texts is my spiritual preparation for the Triduum. This Holy Week, I have no need to do that, since I will not be chanting them nor will I be singing the part of John the Evangelist in the Good Friday passion Gospel. So this year, I pulled down my volume of Martin Luther’s Sermons off my study book shelf. It’s an antique 1902 edition, written in the old German Fraktur script, and contains one or more sermons for each Sunday of the year, including holy days. This would be my Triduum preparation. Read and ponder the words of Luther regarding the passion and the resurrection. Like Father B.’s Lenten challenge, Luther proposes an interesting Good Friday charge, one I had never considered, but which makes complete sense. When celebrated properly, the Good Friday service is packed with emotion, as we know, however this emotion is the problem: it’s misleading, and Luther tells us this flat out. We get caught up in the sufferings of Christ and mourn for him: we are moved to tears that an innocent man is judged, convicted and executed. Instead, we should indeed be rightly moved to tears, but we should mourn and weep not for Christ, but for ourselves “like with women who followed Christ from Jerusalem and were admonished by him that they should weep for themselves and for their children”, for it is our own fault that Christ shed his blood.
I’ve often been asked as a choir director why the text of the Passion Chorale (O Sacred Head) is so gory. Many hymnals clean up the text a bit, but my choice is always the old translation that spares none of the blood and pain. It’s the edition most like the original German text. The text isn’t meant to make you physically ill, but it is meant to make real the scene of the passion, to remove the sterility and present the reality. This makes perfect sense when we read Luther’s observation in his Good Friday sermon. Here’s my translation of a particularly pertinent passage: “To ponder the suffering of Christ correctly, to really behold it, is to be profoundly horrified and that the conscience likewise sinks into despair. You experience the horror in that you behold the grave anger and immutable seriousness of God regarding sins and sinners, because he did not want to give the sinners’ lot to his most beloved son, but through it, he would do such a great and heavy penance. So he speaks through Isaiah (53,8): Because of my people’s sin, have I slain him. What could come against the sinner, if the most beloved child is slain? It must be an unspeakable, unbearable seriousness, when for the sinner such a greatly immeasurable person steps in, suffers and dies. And if you ponder it quite deeply that God’s son, the eternal wisdom of the Father, himself suffers, so you should be horrified, the more, the deeper. And further you must realize and never doubt it, that you are the one who puts Christ to death. For your sins have surely done it. In this way St. Peter (Acts 2, 36,37) horrified the Jews as if with a clap of thunder when he told them: You have crucified him. And then it happened that three thousand, horrified and quaking, said to the apostles on the same day: O dear brothers, what should we do? Therefore, when you see the nails of Christ piercing through his hands, believe firmly that they are your works. Look upon the crown of thorns and believe: these are your thoughts. And understand this: where a thorn pricks Christ, there should easily more than one hundred thousand thorns have pricked you, and that eternally and with even more violence. Where a nail was driven through the hands and feet of Christ, you should have been made to endure even more violent nails…For this serious mirror, Christ, neither lies nor complains.”
Thinking about the passion of Christ in this way makes that fish order seem pretty inconsequential, doesn’t it? Christ was pierced for our offenses, and as recompense, we dutifully order the halibut. Heretic! Blasphemer you say I am! You rend your garments! Calm down, Pharisee! I’m just turning up the heat a bit on the sacrifice scale, just like Father B. did. Entering the passion of Christ means a little more than going through the motions. Luther charges us to stop and take notice. Gaze upon the crucifix and at least attempt to magnify Christ’s sufferings a thousand fold, and the result is what we ourselves merit. Ponder it. Hagios ho Theos!

Of dirty cars, evil Christians, and bulldogs

This Saturday afternoon, I decided is was high time to wash the car. The rear bumper of my automobile had escaped those unseen vandalizing fingers who revel in scribbling little reminders to car owners what they should do the next time there’s a spare minute: “wash me”. I opened the garage door, backed the car out onto the driveway, uncurled the hose, and prepared my car soap in the green plastic mop bucket. As I finished scrubbing the fourth wheel rim, I found myself singing the tune KIRKEN DEN ER (remember, I’m a musician hypergeek, so I’m prone to random acts of singing). My singing attracted a little boy who was practicing his bike-riding in the alley between the houses, into which lead the my driveway and those of my neighbors on either side of my house and of those behind. The little chap was being followed by a miniature blond bulldog name Ellie. By then, I was drying off my car to avoid water spots. Ellie and I had been acquainted last weekend as she wandered through my open courtyard gate while I was pruning my rose bushes. She announced herself with a soprano bark, and I answered her with a baritone “go home!” Today, she just walked up and sniffed. The boy was right behind and began to talk, explaining what he was doing, riding back and forth up and down the alleyway. He revealed his usual route when things got a bit boring: he would strike a looping path through the alley, or curve up onto the driveways one by one until he reached the end of his course. He confessed that he sometimes fell off his bicycle. I was interested in what he had to say, and I shared that I too had, as have done all of us, fallen off a bicycle when I was a kid – for me, into an ant hill in Florida, where my father taught me how to ride. My family vacationed there each summer, and that was where I received my first bicycle. The boy was pleasant and his dog enjoyed the visit too. Soon, I told him that I was finished with my work and that I would now pull my car back into the garage. He understood that this meant that I was going in and would be leaving him to his practice. When the garage door closed, I thought of my singing and how naturally the little boy had come over and started talking. He had undoubtedly seen me in the neighborhood before, but we had never officially met. Outgoing little guy, I thought. Then I remembered a saying that I had learned probably about when I was his age, maybe 6 or 7: “Wo man singt, da liegt man ruhig nieder. Böse Menschen haben keine Lieder.” It has no rhyme in English: “Wherever there’s someone singing, one can rest safely there. Evil people have no songs.” I like that saying, and I believe it to be true. Lately, as one might imagine, I’ve come across a few people who have no songs – in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever really heard them sing. The saying does hold true. On the other hand, very recently I’ve also found a majority of persons who love music and who love to sing. In their cases, the saying also holds true. Regarding the former, we can only rely upon Holy Scripture which reminds us that someday, the “tongue of the dumb will sing!” (That is, unless they through their lifetime decisions have dedicated their souls eternally to wailing and gnashing of teeth). Let me share with you the hymn I was singing this afternoon. It also provides an image about the past month and half in Lafayette. The hymn paints bleak images of Christendom, however, there is a distinct message of hope in the constancy of the Almighty and in our assurance of His Grace and of our salvation. The old saying came up frequently at home when I was a kid, and this hymn found its way onto the hymn board at church just as frequently. Here are verses 1 and 7:

Built on the Rock the Church doth stand,
Even when steeples are falling;
Crumbled have spires in ev’ry land,
Bells still are chiming and calling,
Calling the young and old to rest,
But above all the soul distrest,
Longing for rest everlasting.

Grant, then, O God, where’er men roam,
That, when the church bells are ringing,
Many in saving faith may come
Where Christ His message is bringing:
“I know Mine own, Mine own know Me;
Ye, not the world, My face shall see,
My peace I leave with you.” Amen.

TOO FUNNY

Good way to come home after three Corpus Christi Masses, followed by my daughter's softball game:

What is a progressive's favorite Latin hymn?
Tantrum Ego!
(Compliments of the Curt Jester.)

A few years back, I used to think it was O God, My Ego's Getting to Me (ripped off from O Deus, Ego Amo Te).

Peace,
BMP

THE VOICE OF GOD SINGETH

Gary Penkala at CanticaNOVA Publications clarifies quite nicely the issue of the "voice of God" in hymn texts - that is, when the congregation sings a hymn text with God or Christ speaking in the first person. Check it out!
Peace,
BMP

Another Trip into Hymns

Thanks again to The Cyber Hymnal.

Find below the original text of The Church's One Foundation. There are some marked alterations from what we are normally familiar with. Just food for thought...

~nb

------------------------

The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her
And for her life He died.

She is from every nation,
Yet one o’er all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.

The Church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain, and cherish,
Is with her to the end:
Though there be those who hate her,
And false sons in her pale,
Against or foe or traitor
She ever shall prevail.

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!

’Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Till, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won,
With all her sons and daughters
Who, by the Master’s hand
Led through the deathly waters,
Repose in Eden land.

O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee:
There, past the border mountains,
Where in sweet vales the Bride
With Thee by living fountains
Forever shall abide!

HYMN BY AN AMERICAN PRESIDENT

Following Nick's link to the Trivia section of the Cyberhymnal, I stumbled onto this Psalm 43 (42) based hymn text by none other than the Sixth President of the United States, John Quincy Adams:

Send forth, O God, Thy light and truth,
And let them lead me still,
Undaunted, in the paths of right,
Up to Thy holy hill.
Then to Thy altar will I spring,
And in my God rejoice;
And praise shall tune the trembling string,
And gratitude my voice.

O why, my soul, art thou cast down?
Within me why distressed?
Thy hopes the God of grace shall crown;
He yet shall make thee blessed.
To Him, my never failing Friend,
I bow, and kiss the rod;
To Him shall thanks and praise ascend,
My Savior and my God.

This COULD be good material STILL for a Catholic hymnal - far better for an Entrance hymn than Here I Am, Lord or Gather Us In or even All Are Welcome. Best choice of course would be the Introit of the day, but if you MUST use a hymn (many of us musicians I'm sure still feel like we're in that situation at this point after forty years of damage), this is ideal.

Suggested tunes: FOREST GREEN, ELLACOMBE, KINGSFOLD, HALIFAX
(or, split the two verses into four short verses and use NEW BRITAIN, ST. ANNE, DUNDEE, ST. STEPHEN)

President Adams wrote a few hymn texts, but this one really caught my eye.

Peace,
BMP

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, Part II

Well it seems that Brian beat me to the punch and began discussion on this topic before I could get a post written. (Punk!)

In my research (a/k/a digging through my hymnal collection) I ran across this version in a Reformed hymnal from 1941-1960.

1. Praise ye the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation! O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation. All ye who hear, Now to His temple draw near; join me in glad adoration!

2. Praise ye the Lord, who o'er all things so wondrously reigneth, shelters thee under His wings, yea, so gently sustaineth! Hast thou not seen How thy desires e'er have been Granted in what He ordaineth?

3. Praise ye the Lord, O let all that is in me adore Him! All that hath life and breath, come now with praises before Him! Let the Amen sound from His people again: gladly for aye we adore Him. Amen.

NOW FOR THE KICKER.

I remembered The Cyber Hymnal, and decided to see what they have in the way of texts. They archive the "real deal"; none of these nambypamby text alterations. It appears there are a lot more than four verses. (I've also decided to add Cyber Hymnal to our links).

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear, now to His temple draw near;
Praise Him in glad adoration.

Praise to the Lord, Who over all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under His wings, yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen how thy desires ever have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?

Praise to the Lord, Who hath fearfully, wondrously, made thee;
Health hath vouchsafed and, when heedlessly falling, hath stayed thee.
What need or grief ever hath failed of relief?
Wings of His mercy did shade thee.

Praise to the Lord, Who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee.

Praise to the Lord, Who, when tempests their warfare are waging,
Who, when the elements madly around thee are raging,
Biddeth them cease, turneth their fury to peace,
Whirlwinds and waters assuaging.

Praise to the Lord, Who, when darkness of sin is abounding,
Who, when the godless do triumph, all virtue confounding,
Sheddeth His light, chaseth the horrors of night,
Saints with His mercy surrounding.

Praise to the Lord, O let all that is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath, come now with praises before Him.
Let the Amen sound from His people again,
Gladly for aye we adore Him.

Words: Jo­ach­im Ne­an­der, in A und Ω Glaub- und Lieb­es­ü­bung (Stras­lund: 1680); trans­lat­ed from Ger­man to Eng­lish by Cath­er­ine Wink­worth, 1863.

Music: LOBE DEN HERREN, An­der Theil des Er­neu­er­ten Ge­sang­buch, se­cond edi­tion (Bre­men, Ger­ma­ny: 1665); har­mo­ny by Wil­liam S. Ben­nett, 1864.

From the CyberHymnal. Praise to the Lord, the Almighty

PRAISE TO THE LORD, THE ALMIGHTY

Nick's comments are really inspiring my posts as of late, snark snark!

His latest comment on this post:
"What bugs me is all the songs that are being spewed out with "me"-oriented texts...but we can't sing "Praise to the Lord, O let all that is in me adore him." (LOBE DEN HERREN, v.4) We have to sing US."

But what's funny is you still have in verse 1 "Oh MY soul praise him, for he is thy health and salvation", and not "Let OUR souls praise him..." (thank God).

Actually, here's the whole text, with typical alterations in italics

1. Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise him, for he is thy (your/our) health and salvation.
Join the great throng, Psaltery, organ, and song,
(Come, all who hear, brothers and sisters draw near)
(OR All you who hear, now to his altar/temple/presence draw near)
Sounding in glad adoration. (Joining in glad/Join in profound adoration.)

The third line, "Join the great throng, Psaltery, organ, and song" appears in Hymnal 1940, Hymnal 1982 (both Episcopal), and GIA's now-out-of-print Worship II. Now the line takes a more "gathering" focus rather than "praising God in sacred song" (notice the removal of the word "organ" - Catholic publishers get a dope slap here).

2. Praise to the Lord, who o'er all things so wondrously reigneth (reigning)
Who as on wings of an eagle, uplifted, sustaineth (sustaining)
Hast thou (Have you) not seen All that is needful hath (had/has) been
Granted in what He ordaineth?
(I forgot what the substitute line was here, but I know it was altered).

In some Catholic hymnals this verse is completely missing. I normally would push the second line as a viable substitute for the insipid chorus of Eagle's Wings. Liturgical Press uses this substitute verse in all its worship aids:

Praise to the Lord, let us offer our gifts at the altar.
Let not our sins and offenses now cause us to falter.
Christ, the High Priest, Bids us all join in his feast,
Victims with him on the altar.

J.S. Paluch's old Monthly Missalette and its predecessor Seasonal Missalette used that verse also, from its inception in the sixties up until 1991. Seems to have that gathering motif, but at least Fr. Udulutsch, the Franciscan (Capuchin) who authored this verse, was not afraid to admit in his text that we have "sins and offenses".

3. Praise to the Lord, who doth (shall) prosper our work and defend thee (us);
Surely his goodness and mercy shall daily attend thee (us).
Ponder anew What the Almighty can do,
Who, with his love, doth (will) befriend thee (us).

One finds here not only an idea of who the Lord is defending, but, in two lines, the changing of tense from present to future. Now the verse has a whole new meaning!

4. Praise to the Lord, O let all that is in me (us) adore him!
All that hath (has) life and breath come now with praises (rejoicing) before him.
Let the AMEN Sound from his people again,
Gladly, for aye, we adore him. (Now as we/As we here worship before him)

Even the old text has "WE adore him". Now, if you really wanted to modernize the fourth line, simply changing "aye" to "yea" or even "yes" would be totally sufficient. I think Hymnal 1940 used for a second line:
All that hath breath join with Abraham's seed to adore him. Interesting!

What say ye?

Peace,
BMP