THE OLD WAYS WERE BEST

    

Venite, exultemus Domino.

O COME, let us sing unto the LORD; * let us heartily re- joice in the strength of our salvation.

Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving; * and show ourselves glad in him with psalms.

For the LORD is a great God; * and a great King above all gods.

In his hand are all the corners of the earth; * and the strength of the hills is his also.

The sea is his, and he made it; * and his hands prepared the dry land.

O come, let us worship and fall down, * and kneel before the LORD our Maker.

For he is the Lord our God; * and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.

O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness; * let the whole earth stand in awe of him.

For he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth; * and with righteousness to judge the world, and the peoples with his truth.

In the old days (the old ways were best) we had Morning Prayer three Sundays a month, all but the First Sunday, when we had Holy Communion. The Invitatory (opening canticle) was always either the Venite or the Jubilate, sung to heavenly Anglican Chant, four part harmony. Those Hymnal 1940 tunes are gone, replaced with new. After the late twentieth century music and liturgical reforms were settled in place the old Anglican Chant was still sung beautifully at Trinity Apalachicola with Ina Meyer or Myra Ponder at the organ.

There are some really fine modern Venite settings though, one being S-35 a chant tune by J. N. White.  

Psalm 95 is the proper psalm for tomorrow, the Third Sunday in Lent. The psalm is longer than the sung Venite (which now goes through verse 7), and includes the last four verses, 8-11. Verses 1-7 represent the sung praise of the people. Verses 8-11 change completely and are in the nature of oracle, God himself speaking, responding to the praise of the first seven verses. This oracle sounds a bit ominous, a veiled threat, a warning. A perfect Lenten liturgical response to the Old Testament reading, Exodus 17:1-7.

95  Venite, exultemus
1 Come, let us sing to the LORD; *     let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving *                         and raise a loud shout to him with psalms. 3 For the LORD is a great God, *     and a great King above all gods. 4 In his hand are the caverns of the earth, *     and the heights of the hills are his also. 5 The sea is his, for he made it, *     and his hands have molded the dry land.

6	Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, *     and kneel before the LORD our Maker.
7	For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!
8	Harden not your hearts, as your forebears did in the wilderness, *     at Meribah, and on that day at Massah,     when they tempted me.
9	They put me to the test, *     though they had seen my works.
10	Forty years long I detested that generation and said, *    "This people are wayward in their hearts;     they do not know my ways."
11	So I swore in my wrath, *    "They shall not enter into my rest." Right shoe first. Shabbat: shalom. TW+ Photo: Wilderness of Zin