Standing for the processional hymn this morning, for the 6th year in a row, we sang “Jesus Christ is Risen Today.”  Once again, I thought to myself about the many years of singing “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” in the Baptist church, and how these lyrics still seemed weird to me, though I love the music (though the parish I attended this morning is utterly stuck in funeral dirge mode…we wouldn’t want an up-tempo, joyous (but reverent) hymn on the most important day on the calendar, now would we?  Seriously – the mass would have been 15 minutes shorter if the hymns had been sung at a comfortable tempo.  We’re talking painfully slow.  Sort of like this painfully long parenthetical.)

Anyway, as I was singing from the Gather hymnal, I figured this was one of the many hymns butchered by the Oregon Catholic Press for being “too Catholic” or “too gender specific.”  I’ve come to be greatly annoyed with some of the hymns in Gather, due to sometimes arbitrary butchering of hymns.  Many are “gender neutralized.”  Others just have weird changed in them.  “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” comes to mind – I am used to “were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a ransom far too small, love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life my all.”  Gather has us sing “were every realm of nature mine, my gift would still be far too small…”

And in my home parish, about half the folks know one set of words and sing them by habit…and the other half sings what’s printed on the page.  It can be messy.

So anyway, I figured this was just another situation where OCP decided to edit the hymns to make them more cosmopolitan.

Good news is, I was wrong.  Catholics have been singing “Jesus Christ is risen today” for 700 years in Latin, and for 300 years (300 years this year in fact) in English.  “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” has only been around since 1739, originating the John Wesley’s hymn book. Interestingly, at least one website I found lists the 3 original verses of “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” as the last 3 verses of “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.”

So, I learned something new today – that Gather can do some things right…and learned more about the authenticity of the Catholic heritage.

For those of you who’ve never seen “Christ The Lord Is Risen Today,” check out the link.  You can read over the words.  I like many of them myself.

Wonder if they had to insert apostrophes into the original Latin texts in order to fit syllables to the music?  After all, we have to sing “risen” as a single syllable in order for it to fit.  “ris’n.”  Wonder if every time a hymn writer does that, God kills an English teacher?

“Jesus Christ is Risen Today”

“Christ the Lord is Risen Today”

(important to note that at least in the USA we use the “Easter Hymn” melody for both versions.)