A couple weeks ago at mass, there was a song new to me, “Take from my Heart,” by Karen Schneider Kirner and John T. Kyler. The credits indicate that the lyrics are adapted from the “Act of Resignation” by Catherine McAuley. It managed to be the perfect blend of lyric and melody to really touch me in a time when I had forgotten that music could do this, at least not church music.
So much contemporary Catholic liturgical music has lyrics which are scriptural paraphrase and end up, over time, being a bit dulling to me. There are a handful of songs which have some turn of phrase or melody that reached me, but it feels like a long time since I’ve had some church music do that for me, so I felt like I should call out this song as something special which I’m thankful for. I’d also note that the publisher on this is World Library Press who I tend to associate with the drabbest of the drab when it comes to liturgical music, so this was an especial surprise.
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