Hattip to the eagle-eyed Father Z who found this on Facebook from a group called SLAP (Survivors of Liturgical Abuse in Parishes).
Gather Us In […to the tune of, that is!]
Here in this place, our comfortable parish,
All of the statues carried away,
See in each face a vacuous visage,
Brought here by guilt or by R.C.I.A.Gather us in, by Beemer or Hummer,
Gather us in, so we can feel good,
Come to us now in this barren Zen temple,
With only a shrub and an altar of wood.We are the young, our morals a mystery,
We are the old, who couldn’t care less,
We have been warned throughout all of history,
But we enjoy this liturgical mess.Gather us in, our radical pastor,
Gather us in, our unveiled nun,
Call to us now, with guitars and bongos,
Hang up your cellphones and join in the fun!Â
Update:Â Some more lyrics from the commenters at Father Z’ s blog:
Here we will take some wine and some water,
Whether it changes, we really don’t care.
But when the Sign of Peace comes, our pastor,
Jumps from the altar and hugs like a bear.
Gather us in, uncatechized masses,
Gather us in, the liberal elite,
Help us to form our personal Credo,
Give us a choice between white bread and wheat.
One of our teens, she serves on the altar,
Our only other, he plays bass guitar.
Sister preaches in Crocs and a pantsuit,
She reads it straight to us from NCR.
Gather us in, the truly enlightened,
Texts and rubrics are too much a fuss.
We all eschew outdated religion,
Our god is our bellies, our worship is Us.
Here in this place, a bad song is starting,
Now will the altar turn into a stage.
All that is holy is slowly departing,
Making a way for the coming New Age.
Gather us in, though we are like captives.
But to miss Mass on Sunday, that would be wrong.
But Lord hear our plea, regarding M. Haugen:
Give him the courage to put down that bong.
Dear Father Smith make a beeline procession,
Run if you have to, make it real terse.
If you can start this Mass very quickly,
Maybe we’ll only have to sing but one verse.
O Dear Lord Jesus, You are the Savior
We’ve promised to follow, whatever the cost.
But we didn’t know this song had been written:
Would you terribly mind if we came off our cross?
I am sure some of our talented commenters could add some stanzas if they put their minds to it!
Awesomely creative! And terribly sad. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry!
Agreed Kevin.
It is sad. Even though we have a similar problem in Godzone, I don’t think it is as serious as in your great country.
The “Our Father” of the Novus Ordo Missae:
Hilarious e.!
Hi Kiwi Don,
Which part of N.Z. do you live in? I visited there for a month in 2007 and REALLY loved the whole country, but especially Wellington and much of the South Island (not so much Christchurch or Auckland, to be honest!) I went to a Mass said by the bishop of the Wellington diocese (archdiocese?) at the cathedral and found it bland, but not irreverent. It was certainly packed for a Sunday evening Mass, in any case. However, the secularism there was and is rampant, much like here.
Great to hear from Kiwi Catholics–keep the faith!
[…] was doing random Internet searching for fun and found this parody of Marty Haugen’s Gather Us In. For me, this particular “hymn” is the symbol of all really awful songs that we sing […]