Bring flowers of the rarest

[RobH]

On Sunday we shall be crowning Our Lady at Mass and will be singing "Bring flowers of the rarest" (please don't comment on the banality of this tune - it's wonderful.) I would be very interested to know how many other parishes do this, as I would assume that most places do. This has not been done here for many, many years, but our new priest is reviving it, as we have a quite famous Shrine in the church which has not been given the importance it deserves. Amusingly, many of our older choir members can hardly remember singing this hymn and are having to learn it afresh! We have also recently learnt the Regina Caeli and Vidi Aquam. I find it rather amusing that an ex Protestant is teaching cradle Catholics these traditional hymns.

[Gwyn]

I find it rather amusing that an ex Protestant is teaching cradle Catholics these traditional hymns.

Same here Rob.

We often use a medly of Marian hymn verses interspersed with Eastertide hymn verses to end our Sunday Choral Mass during May. My Fav pot-boiler is "O Mother, I Would Weep For Mirth.

Marian hymns are a delight as are May Processions. Belmont Abbey (about 20 miles up the road from me) has a fanatastic Torch-lit Procession in Honour of Our Lady each May, the procession is huge and the church will be full to capacity.

Ave Maria!

[contrabordun]

I turned up to choir tonight to find it on the list for Sunday (I don't choose the hymns, evidently). They seemed very keen on it but vengance was mine: I insisted on the notes and the rhythm exactly as in the book.

Roll on Sweet Sacrament Divine!

[Gwyn]

I insisted on the notes and the rhythm exactly as in the book.

Chortle.

[Alan]

I am not a cradle Catholic, having joined the Church in the 70s while at university. I fully understand how people can retain a strong affection for the hymns and songs of their childhood - there are several hymns for children in Songs of Praise (1931 edition) that can instantly transport me and my rose-tinted NHS glasses back to my primary school - but I don't wish to sing them now, still less ask others to sing them.

But perhaps it isn't about nostalgia at all. My wife, who is a cradle Catholic and who was brought up with this hymn and others of similar vintage, likes them even less than I do. My PP, who is older and more conservative than I, and certainly no iconoclast, would happily consign them to the outer darkness.

However, live and let live. While I would prefer not to encounter these hymns at Mass, I can appreciate that they would be well-nigh indispensable in a 'traditional' devotional service*, where, once again, since I won't be there, I will not encounter them.

Let me hasten to add that I am most certainly not talking about Regina coeli and Vidi aquam (assuming that Rob means the chant settings) - only about the Faberian Victoriana.

* A serious question: is there any other kind?

[Nick Baty]

On Sunday we shall be crowning Our Lady at Mass and will be singing "Bring flowers of the rarest"

I'd be interested to know how you fit this into Mass on the Fourth Sunday of Easter when the themes are the Name of Jesus and the Good Shepherd. I admit to being an old git who's rather set in his ways and who can't easily adapt to all the new ideas which are pouring out these days, but shouldn't this be a separate devotion?

[Psalm Project]

I have this set as the recessional for Sunday. I'd be hung, drawn and quartered is I did not!
It is not part of the mass (Technically) - We always use Marian hymns at the end of mass for both October and may.
It's purely a tradition.
Bring flowers is a great sing! Anyone singing 'Daily, daily sing to Mary' - now there's a stomach turner... or how about 'Virgin Mother with thy sweet face bending'... leave your imagination outside on that one!

[keitha]

Nick is, in my view, right (for what that is worth). I imagine the thinking is that if it were a devotion, virtually no-one would turn up! Having said that, on the Sundays during May we will sing the Regina Coeli at mass immediately after the Postcommunion Prayer but before the blessing and dismissal, with an explanation being given as to why we are singing it. I think that will 'work', liturgically speaking. In October we will have the Salve Regina.

[Nick Baty]

I suppose there's a lot of presumed tradition here.

We won't sing anything Marian during May because the 12 month cycle of devotions is different from the liturgical cycle.

However, we always finish evening prayer with a Salve Regina, O Mother Blest or, more regularly, Mary Immaculate, Star of the Morning, our parish anthem. But then it is not used as a recessional – we all gather at our Marian shrine and sing – then the priest processes out: we don't mix the two. (Probably because I'm reminded of a certain UCM event when the bishop processed in to This is the image of our queen...)

[VML]

Nick, your parish- you?- have excellent taste in Marian hymns. I love 'Mary Immaculate, star of the morning', but have never managed to find a place for it here.
'Virgin Mother with thy sweet face bending'.... how there's a memory from long long ago. Is it an Augustinian hymn? And where is it in print now? I seem to remember it as a devotion to Our Lady of Good Counsel.

[Nick Baty]

Ah! Mary Immaculate – that wonderful old Lutheran tune harmonised by Bach! What better? I can't sing O Mother blest without shedding a tear. But when we sing Sing of a girl in the ripening wheat in the middle of Advent we all shed a tear for one of the mothers among us who lost her daughter in tragic circumstances around that time of year.

[Southern Comfort]

I must confess to being staggered at this thread. Can anyone seriously still be using this hymn?

We sang it when I was at primary school, way before Vatican II, but I've never encountered it since. It would be like going back to nursery rhymes - infantile regression in a big way.

I have heard of people 'up north' who reintroduced this sort of thing after it had long been absent from the liturgy. Can this be what started it? Is it really just a northern thing?

[Nick Baty]

who reintroduced this sort of thing after it had long been absent from the liturgy.

But was it ever part of the liturgy?

When I was a child it would take its place in the 12-month cycle of afternoon devotions but I don't ever remember it at Mass – our ancient PP would have hit the roof.

Having said that, I have heard of one parish priest up here who, 30 years ago, insisted on using Immaculate Mary every Sunday during communion. And the famous Fr Tim Finigan recently recorded on his blog that in his parish "at Communion we sang O purest of creatures...

But these are, surely, mad blips. Aren't they?

[festivaltrumpet]

We sang it when I was at primary school, way before Vatican II, but I've never encountered it since. It would be like going back to nursery rhymes - infantile regression in a big way.

Southern Comfort's words might be interpreted in a way that suggests texts sung before the council are less mature than that composed afterwards. I trust this is not the case.

Many hymn texts (and tunes) for Marian devotion are indeed "Faberian Victoriana". Are post-concilliar (or to further Southern Comfort's analogy, "adult" ) examples better? They are certainly less numerous.

[Nick Baty]

are post-concilliar...examples better...certainly less numerous.

Probably because Marian devotions are less frequent – and that most likely because the people stopped coming once they had cars and out of town stores started opening on Sundays.

I was recently harassed by someone who only visits our parish to complain and then goes away: Why, she asked, were there no Marian devotions in May or October? I suggested that we'd love it and she might like to organise them. She declined. By the way, the same lady doesn't come to evening prayer – when we do end with a Marian anthem – doesn't come to church on Maundy Thursday "because it's not a holy day of obligation" and avoids the Easter Vigil because "you've added all those readings".

But I've gone off topic and fear a spanking from the bear.