Catholic Online Forum

Have you encountered the Ash Wednesday song ASHES

To avoid copyright problems I will limit myself to one phrase from the first stanza. And I always thought that accepting the ashes was a sign of our willingness to let God recreate us.

Please go to the link to get a full criticism. Note especially the emphasis on first person in the lyrics. God doesn't get mentioned until the fourth stanza.

It seems to be built more on the rebirth of the Phoenix than on the loving sacrifice of Christ.

Note that the copyright is by New Dawn Music; sounds like New Age to me.

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- Joe Kelley

Death is only a shadow across the path to Heaven.

I don't like the song - plain and simple!
Mary-Love

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Mary-Love

Jesus, I trust in You.

Egad!! We sing that song at my church! Does that mean we are risking heracy?
Double Egad! I find myself enjoying the words and melody! Am I risking mortal sin?
Joe,

Please note the winking emoticons and take the above in the spirit that it is intended. I am not belittling anyone's right to make a thoughtful criticism about the song. The layperson who wrote the critique has as much right to believe what he does as do I to not see that kind of anti-God sentiment in the words.

He mentions an unidentified you that appears occasionally. Well, what he sees as unidentified I have always, as from the very first time I learned the song, seen as a reference to God. So I guess at least part of the meaning is contained in the interpretation.

While I agree that there are many songs that are blatantly anti-God, my personal opinion is that this is not one of them.

Of course, if I become convinced that it is or if told by the authority of the Church that it is, I will quit participating in the singing of it at Mass. Until that occurs, I will continue to enjoy the song, respecting, of course, the right of the author of the critique and you to refuse to sing it.
I really don't think it's fair to postulate that based on a one-word similarity. Could we not then say Sing a New Song or New England must be new age?

Again, I think in this instance it is as much (actually, probably more) how the receiver interprets the words as what the composer felt when writing them which makes the song right or wrong.

One of those gray areas we finite beings keep bumping up against in our struggle to do God's will.

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In Christ,

Jim B

I will consider your position if stated with firm, well-thought-out, quiet reasoning. Hateful diatribe, ad hominem attacks and shouted rhetoric don't impress.

Joe,

I met Tom Conry via the Net about 19 yrs ago. While he and I did not agree on much concerning Doctrine or music, I can assure you that he is not "New Age".

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Tony Liotta

Jesus is weeping again.
"No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." (Lk 9:62)
"No one can serve two masters; ...... You cannot serve God and mammon", (i.e., money, wealth, prosperity). (Matt. 6:24)

Thanks, Joe, for the link. I'm so busy at work now, but I'll bookmark it and save it for later reading.

The first time I heard that song was the year our former pianist/music director played it all Lent long. She did it again the next year, and by that time, our choir of Filipino little old ladies was gushing over it.

I frowned and became a persona-non-grata in the choir. They accused me of having a "too-high" personal aesthetic standard that nothing could possibly satisfy. They had one word to describe my disapproval: snobbishness.

No, it was not the first-person viewpoint that irritated me, and though I don't care for the phoenix imagery, I found it less offensive than the sloppy theology behind the song.

"We rise again from ashes?" I thought the idea was for to "sit on ashes" (prayer and penance), not to "rise from it" during Lent.

We rise again? Have we risen before, and for the second time, we have to rise again? - how's that? When, exactly did we rise from ashes the first time? When Christ rose from the dead? Isn't this theology better fitted for Easter than at the start of Lent?

I thought the Lenten idea is for us to "DIE TO SELF", so what has this "rising again from ashes" do to with prayer, fasting, sacrifice, and almsgiving?

Joe, I'm eagerly looking forward to reading the link, if only to reassure myself that I'm not just being a cranky, eccentric old lady who's difficult to please.

And oh, by the way. Our choir director is gone. Ah...(ahem), I'm now the one who does litugical planning for the English Masses in our parish. And you're darn right I wouldn't have anything to do with Conry's "Ashes."

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Pax et bonum,
Marie

JMJ