All are Welcome (If you don't really care about liturgy)

Ok, to start this post, just a bit of a primer - What draws you closer the THE LORD?

Marty Haugen vs. St Thomas Aquinas

Alright, I know they are not taken in the exact format, one is from a "woman's ordination to the priesthood", the other taken from Holy Thursday.  Both, however, could be heard at any Mass and between you and me I have heard Mr. Haugen far more often.  So to the post I go.

I have heard an increased number of orthodox Catholics complain more and more regarding the liturgical music that is used for worshiping our Lord (not each other).  I have a friend in Western WI that states he will not sing when Marty Haugen's songs are played - and to my understanding is quite often.  A Priest in Eastern WI that has to put up with "All are Welcome" at the beginning of almost every Mass.  Lastly, a Priest in the Diocese of Lincoln that gave a very stern homily regarding the witness adults give to children when they do not sing during Mass.  What is the tie that binds these three situations together?  The fact that faithful Catholics WANT to worship God during the Liturgy - not each other. 

Go back to the top videos, do you think one would hear Pange Lingua at an "ordination" for women to the priesthood?  (If in fact such a thing were possible.)  Not likely.  Do my friends or I hear "We Are Many Parts" at the TLM?  No, and perhaps that may be part of the draw - to return to a sense of tradition.  OK, enough of that, many people have asked me what is the story with folks like Mary Haugen and David Hass and the like.  Well, here is what I found.  I don't want this to be a head hunt, so keeping that in mind I will be taking only factual info from their respective websites and the MIGHTY wikipedia.

Biography for Marty Haugen
Marty Haugen is a liturgical composer, workshop presenter, performing and recording artist & author from Eagan, Minnesota. He and his wife, Linda, have two children with good partners (not sure what that means) and a recent grandson. Currently Marty serves as composer-in-residence at Mayflower United Church of Christ in Minneapolis and serves occasionally as adjunct instructor at United Theological Seminary in New Brighton, Minnesota.  For the past 25 years, Marty has presented hundreds of workshops and concerts across North and Central America, Europe, Asia and the Pacific Rim. He has over 35 recordings and more than 400 separate printed editions available through GIA Publications. A number of his published songs, including "Shepherd Me, O God," "Gather Us In" and "All Are Welcome" are well-known to many religious denominations. He has a number of published mass settings for Roman Catholic communities, including Mass of Creation, and several communion settings for Lutheran congregations, including Unfailing Light (with Pastor Susan Briehl) and Now the Feast and Celebration, as well as a communion setting for the new Evangelical Worship Book (ELW-Augsburg Fortress).  Marty has served as an editor or consultant to a number of GIA hymnals and has been a contributor to hymnals or supplements for many denominational groups including the ELCA and ELCIC (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and Canada), the United Methodist Church, the Mennonite Brethren, the United Church of Christ, the United Church of Canada, the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and Roman Catholic groups in Great Britain, Canada, Ireland and Australia.

"For twenty plus years I have been told, mainly anonymously through the internet, how I have been personally responsible for destroying Roman Catholic worship. I have never responded; however, I wish to offer a few comments now.  First of all, although I am not Roman Catholic, I have a deep love and respect for and faith in the worship tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. My own hesitancy about joining the Church is not about its Eucharistic theology, but rather around the unwillingness of the Church to commission, ordain and welcome all humans as Jesus did–male and female, married and unmarried, saints and sinners. I believe that the Church, God’s people and all of creation have suffered from this omission.  I do not think of my own music as central or important to Roman Catholic worship, present or future. I began writing as a parish musician; I still keep the vision that to be “catholic” is to learn and love and embrace the best of the past tradition and to welcome the “best” of what is new, as Gods [sic] speaks through all cultures and expressions (see “Lumen Gentia” [sic]). I leave it to communities and to the Holy Spirit that will (more than us, thank God) guide the future choices that will last.  I had nothing to do with the choice of “Mass of Creation” for a Papal Mass. Having said that, I believe that attacks upon Tom Stehle in his efforts to engage a congregation with what he hoped would be familiar and meaningful to them (using parts of the liturgy with currently approved texts) were unfair, un-Christian and beneath those of us who truly care about how God speaks through our Sacraments."  Heres more

Marty Haugen

The MIGHTY Wikipedia

Marty Haugen, (born December 30, 1950 in Wanamingo, Minnesota), is an American composer of liturgical music. He creates settings for both Roman Catholic and Protestant congregations. Haugen was raised in the American Lutheran Church (ALC) in Minnesota, and also writes contemporary hymns and liturgies for the Lutheran church despite being a member the United Church of Christ.  The majority of his compositions are published by GIA Publications, Inc.. His best-known works are two Lutheran liturgies, Holden Evening Prayer and Now the Feast and Celebration, and a setting of the Catholic mass, Mass of Creation. He has also composed dozens of other works, including liturgy settings, choral arrangements, sacred songs, and hymns, including "Here in this Place (Gather Us In)", "Canticle of the Sun", "We Are Many Parts", "We Remember", and "Shepherd Me, O God", as well as several psalm settings and paraphrases.  He is also a performing musician, and has recorded a number of CDs. He holds a position as composer in residence at Mayflower Community Congregational Church (UCC) in Minneapolis.  Haugen holds a degree in psychology from Luther College. After graduating, Haugen pursued a career as a musician. 

His music in contemporary Catholic culture

Following the movement that began with the St. Louis Jesuits in the 1970s and 1980's, Marty Haugen, together with David Haas, became some of the most prolific composers of contemporary Catholic liturgical music during the period of rapid liturgical change following Vatican II. Their hymns, songs, and liturgy make up a good deal of the contents of the GIA Gather hymnals, and are widely published in other hymnals used by the Catholic Church in the United States.
Haugen also leads workshops around the country, entitled "Living Liturgy."
Because Haugen and Haas have become synonymous with this style of music, their names are often mentioned in criticism of liturgical use of music of this style.

 Lutheran Liturgy

Haugen has written four complete liturgies for the ELCA. These include "Now the Feast and Celebration," a communion liturgy; "Holden Evening Prayer," a service of evening prayer originally written for Holden Village, and two additional, untitled communion liturgies first appearing in ELCA hymnals.  These liturgies have been published in various forms, with some of them appearing in ELCA hymnal supplements "With One Voice" and "Renewing Worship," and in the ELCA hymnal, "Evangelical Lutheran Worship" (2006).


Now this was found here and is just opinion, but dang funny (and sadly quite true)

The ten step Marty Haugen song writing program
Step one:
Make sure that you write your Marty Haugen song in the right environment and setting. It will really help if you put on a Barbara Streisand or an Andrew Lloyd Webber CD; the inspiration they give will really boost your song writing ability.  Many Marty Haugen wannabes claim that they personally find Kermit the Frog singing Rainbow Connection a real inspiration in their efforts to follow in the song writing footsteps of the Master.
Step two:
Think about things like your favourite pet. If you don’t have a pet, then think of Lassie or Barney the Dinosaur.
Step three:
Choose a song structure from the following options:
1. Verse, chorus, verse
2. Chorus, verse, chorus
3. Verse, chorus, verse, bridge
Step four:
Choose and complete a song title from the following options:
1. Gather...
2. Justice is...
3. Make us...
4. Happy...
5. Lovely, lovely...
6. People of...
Step five:
Find your favourite cute furry soft toy. Give it a big cuddle and hum your favourite Blue’s Clues song to it. This will help to keep your song writing focus and inspiration going.
Step six:
Choose the appropriate time signature for your song from the following choices:
1. 4/4 Jingle timing
2. 3/4 Waltz timing
Step seven:
Pick an instrument to write your song on from the following options:
1. Folk guitar
2. Casio keyboard
3. Folk guitar and Casio keyboard
Step eight:
Write a tune. It needs to have a happy feel – think 1980’s show tune, or 1970’s elevator music.
Make sure your melody is easily sung by finding a child and trying the tune out on them, if it takes them more than two attempts to grasp the melody then the tune is too complex and needs to be reworked.
If you chose option 3 at step three then you need to make sure that your bridge has a completely different melody to the rest of the song – this helps to keep things lively.
Step nine:
Write the lyrics to your song.
For a song to be a true Haugen classic it needs to incorporate some or all of the following words and phrases:
Justice, community, gathering, eat at the table, communion of hope, peace, injustice, bread, singing people, new song, light, open our minds, you love our failures, weakness.
Do not consult the Catechism or any other official Church documents during the lyric writing process, it will just complicate your lyrics and taint them with an official hierarchical flavour which doesn't work for Haugen songs.
Step ten:
Test your song by doing the following:
1. Play your song on a Church organ, preferably in your Diocesan Cathedral. If it sounds good played on the organ then you need to start over. If this happens you might want to spend more time listening to Rainbow Connection before beginning the writing process.
2. Find a group of at least ten children and get them to sing your song. If it sounds the same with them yelling/singing it as it did when you finished writing it then you could be on to a winner.
3. Try it out at your local rest home. If the most tone deaf residents have no problems remembering your song after hearing it only once then you definitely have a hit on your hands.

This is too good to pass up.

Offer it up

(to the tune of "Gather us in")
Here in this place, a new song is playing
now is the silence vanished away,
hear, in this space, our sound bites and sayings,
brought here to You in the light of this day.

Offer it up the trite and shallow
offer it up the lyrics so lame
call to us now, our spirits lie fallow
cringing at songs that rejoice in our name.

We are the young to whom worship's a mystery
we are the old – who yearn to embrace
hymns that were sung throughout all of history
sadly it seems they have all been replaced.

Offer it up the lyrics so haughty
offer it up the messages wrong
pray for the soul of poor brother Marty
give us the stomach to finish this song.

Here we will sing of wine and of water
wish we would sing of the blood of our Lord
here we shall sing with our sons and our daughters
hoping they don't get confused by the words.

Give us to sing, a song that is pious
Give us to sing, a song about You
let our music ministers buy us
hymns that are holy with words that are true.

http://fatherjoe.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/2974/

http://www.martyhaugen.net/indexbio.html

http://oxfiles.blogspot.com/2006/03/ten-step-marty-haugen-song-writing.html

Found someone else with a similiar post here he beat me to it a few months ago.