Song Of Rejoicing

First off, an apology for the lack of updates over the past couple weeks.  Besides a busier than normal work schedule of late, I also recently traveled to Mobile, AL to attend my brother’s ordination to the priesthood.  What a joyous and beautiful celebration, but as you might imagine there wasn’t much time for blogging.  (On a side note, Fr. Stephen Vrazel maintains his own blog and if you’re curious I encourage you to give it a look – there’s always interesting spiritual food for thought to be found there.)

In any event though, Michael and I have not been completely idle during our online absence.  In fact, we’ve been very busy learning the ropes on a new digital recorder that will enable us to create demo recordings of some of our other songs to be shared here.

Today, we’re uploading our first of these demo recordings, Song Of Rejoicing.  This song may be familiar to IHM parishioners since we have used it a number of times over the past year and half.  It was written primarily for use on Gaudete Sunday in Advent and Laetare Sunday in Lent, and the IHM community has picked this song up quite well.  Click the Play button on the blue Streampad player bar across the bottom of your browser window to give it a listen and feel free to let us know what you think via email or the comments section.  If you’d like to read more about the inspiration behind this song, click the Read More link below.  Lyrics can also be found after the jump.  Thanks for stopping by.

A couple of years ago, while attending Mass on the third Sunday of Advent, I was particularly struck by the first reading taken from the Book of Baruch, “Jerusalem, take off your robe of mourning and misery; put on the splendor of glory from God forever.”  The words and imagery wouldn’t leave me, and I found myself contemplating the questions of how often we wrap ourselves in mourning and misery versus how often we put on the splendor of God’s glory.

The prophet’s words were his challenge to me and my prayer to God.  Within a few days, the first few bars of the refrain had formed in my head, and Michael and I were off and running with a new song.  It seemed only natural to structure the song for Gaudete Sunday given the liturgical context of the reading that inspired it.  Each verse uses further imagery from the fourth and fifth chapters of the Book of Baruch to convey that wonderful sense of joyous hope and encouragement that I had been blessed with on that Sunday.

Fairly early on in the songwriting process, Michael came up with the idea of an alternate Verse 1, based on the exodus in the desert rather than the return from exile, to make the song more fitting for Laetare Sunday during Lent.  For that verse, we drew inspiration from St. Paul’s description of the exodus in the tenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, and I think this alternate verse makes the song more broadly applicable to appropriate liturgies in Easter and Ordinary Time as well.  The demo recording that we’ve uploaded today contains this alternate verse 1.

Song Of Rejoicing

Refrain

Throw off your robes of mourning,

Put on the splendor of God.

Jerusalem!  Stand upon the heights and behold,

Your joy is at hand, God's glory revealed.

Verse 1 (Advent)

Turn your gaze, and look to the east,

See your children coming home.

Those once lost now return, singing God's praise,

Exalted as royalty enthroned.

Verse 1 (Lent, Easter, Ordinary Time)

Freed from bondage and led through the wild,

God did not abandon you.

Bread from heaven and life-giving water,

Sustained by God's presence in your midst.

Verse 2

Robed in justice and crowned with grace,

God has named you as His own.

All the nations of earth shall see clearly

The gift of God's peace made known through you.

Verse 3

Ev'ry valley will be raised up,

And the mountains all made low

That you may walk in the light of God's glory,

His mercy and justice by your side.