Bible songs

Yep, the Pimpernel is all in favour of them in the liturgy. These ones:

"Preference should be given to songs which are of clear biblical inspiration and which express, through the harmony of music and words, the beauty of God's word. We would do well to make the most of those songs handed down to us by the Church's tradition which respect this criterion. I think in particular of the importance of Gregorian chant."

(Pope Benedict XVI, Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini, 2010 n. 70)

Now, the Pimpernel might think that the Holy Father is putting the case a little too mildly, but at least he's putting it.

There are lots of resources out there for promoting these bible songs. If you haven't ever looked at the CMAA webiste you should. What you can't find there you probably won't need. Those folks are doing great work.

The Pimpernel noticed a neat new batch of recordings of these bible songs over at Corpus Christi Watershed. There are piles of CD recordings of this stuff about, but what's great about these is that they seem to be recording the songs of all of the Sundays of the liturgical year, green and purple Sundays, even rose ones, as well as gold, white and red.

The CDs have booklets with the songs and their notation as well as translations of the Latin into English, French and German.

That's going to be very useful for people trying to reintroduce the Church's bible songs into the liturgy. It's also something that people too far way from a church that would or could sing them could listen to each week. They could be used to prepare for the coming Sunday's Mass, or even for bible-based meditation in union with the liturgical year.

Start your collection today and support the monks of the Abbey of Triors in France as well.