Ritus Narcissus

Part II: The Cult of Conceit -
Why Are We Singing to Each Other?

A conversation demands that we include the other in the discussion. If someone speaks to you about himself, about you, about himself and you, but never really with you, you would call that person conceited. So have we become in our conversation with God: He humbles Himself to dwell among us under the form of bread and wine, while we ignore Him and sing about ourselves and to ourselves.

Of course, many traditional hymns also address the other believers rather than God. But a close look at such hymns (for example, "Now thank we all our God", "Praise, my soul, the King of heaven", or "Ye watchers and ye holy ones") reveals a crucial difference: the traditional hymns address others only to invite them to worship God, while most contemporary songs invite us to glorify ourselves.

"Bread of Life" by Rory Cooney, provides a splendid example of this self-centered conversation. The theme of the song lends itself to the Communion rite. But unfortunately, the words distort the meaning of Communion and the dialogue that should be taking place:

	I myself am the bread of life
	you and I are the bread of life	
	taken and blessed, 
	   broken and shared by Christ
	that the world may live.

Aside from the fact that this song radically distorts "Our Lord's Bread of Life" discourse, it also leaves God out of the conversation: we talk to ourselves. As the communicants come forward to receive the living God, they are singing about themselves. "Sing a New Church", a triumphalist paean to diversity by Delores Dufner, OSB, also fosters the cult of Us:

	Let us bring the gifts that differ
	And, in splendid, varied ways,	
	Sing a new Church into being,	
	One in faith and love and praise

So the chorus goes, and the verses similarly proclaim us to ourselves. Passing over the tremendous ecclesiological problems in the text, we should question what the song communicates to the congregation: songs about us constitute worship of the Almighty. We have replaced Him as the focus of worship.

A favorite Communion song in some parishes is "This Bread That We Share" by Dominic MacAller:

	This bread that we share 
	   is the body of Christ, 
	   this cup of blessing his blood.	
	We who come to this table bring 
	   all our wounds to be healed.	
	When we love one another 
	   as Christ has loved us,
	   we become God's daughters and sons.	
	We become for each other 
	   the bread, the cup,	
	the presence of Christ revealed.

Again the words, which clumsily try to convey the beautiful theology of the Mystical Body, foster in the congregation a focus on itself at the very moment that it should be speaking to and about Himself.

One of the worst offenders in this cult of conceit is a song called "Anthem" by Tom Conry:

	We are called, we are chosen.
	We are Christ for one another.	
	We are promise to tomorrow,	
	while we are for him today.	
	We are sign, we are wonder,	
	we are sower, we are seed.	
	We are harvest, we are hunger.	
	We are question, we are creed.

Count them: 13 separate uses of "I" or "we" in these lines. Nor do the verses help: they do not sing to Christ, but only about Him and to...us! Although the verses do emphasize our inadequacy before God and dependence on Him, nevertheless, the dialogue with the Almighty has been shut down, and we sing to one another about one another and only secondarily about Him, the object of all our affections.

Songs such as these give us a wonderfully ridiculous image of a bride so enamoured with herself that she cannot see the Bridegroom awaiting her at the altar.