Let's Talk About: Many and Great, by Ricky Manalo, CSP

First, a little background on Father Manalo, taken from the OCP website:

Father Ricky Manalo is a presbyter in the Paulist order, which is dedicated to the ministry of evangelization, reconciliation and ecumenism. An accomplished musician, composer, lecturer and author, he specializes in ritual music, liturgical inculturation and spirituality. His compositions combine accessibility with challenge, continuity with variety and solemnity with joy.

Ricky has served as liturgical director of the Asian/Pacific Apostolate Office of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and as choir and liturgy director of the Washington Theological Union. He is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, where studied under John Corigliano and Ludmila Ulehla and received a bachelor of music in composition. He earned a master’s in theology at the Washington Theological Union in Washington, D.C., with a concentration in word and worship. Recent projects include producing a collection of liturgical music from the Philippines and studying multilingual music in China. He currently is pursuing a doctorate in Asian-American liturgical studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.

So now that you know more about Padre Ricky, let's go over the words to this song that my children have dubbed "The Pocahontas Song", because it sounds like it came directly from the movie soundtrack. My comment are in red.

Verse 1:
Many and great are bearers of the Word: the Christ speaks; the heart seeks. "Great" could mean "great in number", in which case it's redundant because of the previous use of "many", or it could mean "super terrific!", which would run counter to the virtue of humility. I assume here that "Word" means the Holy Bible. "The Christ speaks": true, as well as prophets, apostles, etc. if you're talking about the Holy Bible. "the heart seeks": The heart seeks what?

Gathered as one, we listen to the Word and share the meal of new birth. I've run across this phrase "meal of new birth" before, probably in another song. I'm always open to being wrong about these things, so I pulled out my handy Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 1328 to 1332. The following are listed under "What is this Sacrament Called": Eucharist, The Lord's Supper, Breaking of Bread (italicized in the Catechism), Eucharistic assembly, memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection, Holy Sacrifice, Holy and Divine Liturgy, Sacred Mysteries, Most Blessed Sacrament, Holy Communion, the Holy Things, the bread of angels, bread from heaven, medicine of immortality, viaticum, and Holy Mass. That "meal of new birth" thing must be in a missing paragraph. Notify the Vatican at once!

Refrain: The wheat grows from spring-time to fall; the wine flows: in Christ we recall the sharing of our lives with one and all. Give Ricky an A+ in Agricultural Studies. And by the way, "the wine flows" due to its viscosity, but I'm not sure how this fits into the lyric. "in Christ we recall the sharing of our lives with one and all": I don't even know where to begin with this one.......okay, I'm taking a big breath......"sharing of our lives with one and all". One and all? Isn't "one" included in the "all"? Why, yes it is. I'm also not sure about this life-sharing thing; Does this mean talking about ourselves to everyone? Social work? Blood donation? Whatever it means, we're supposed to recall it in Christ. It's great to meditate upon things in Christ, whatever those things are, so I'll let that part go.

Verse 2:
Many and great are seeds upon the field: the hand sows; the seeds grow. Now we're getting somewhere with this "many and great" thing. It must mean quantity. Hows about we change these parts of the verses to "Many, great, much, and a whole bunch"? "The hand sows": possible, but with modern agricultural advances (and we've already given Ricky an A+ in this area), the seeds could be machine-sown. "The seeds grow": the seed germinates, then the primary root grows. But that's getting a wee bit technical, I suppose.

Take now and eat the covenant fulfilled, the bread of promise and life. Yes, Jesus is the "Bread of Life", but since this generation is lacking basic catechesis, I don't care for Him being referred to as "bread of promise and life". He didn't even capitalize the "B" in bread! I have heard even our catechists refer to Him as "the bread" when preparing the First Communion class. I find this offensive and heretical.

Verse 3:
Many and great are voices of despair: the rain falls; the voice calls. Suddenly things have taken a turn for the worse! Even the rain is falling.......wait a doggone minute: I LOVE the rain! Rain=good! But what's that I hear....I think it's a voice calling. Inside my head. It's telling me to not despair; this song will be over soon.

Take now and drink the wine of hope and care; our cup of blessing we share. I could really use some wine right now.

Verse 4:
Many and great are pebbles in the sand: the sun glows: the wind blows. This song blows.
Take now and spread the Word to ev'ry land, the Word of goodness and hope. Take what now? And which Word to spread? Oh, he's going to tell us: the Word of goodness and hope. Does he mean Jesus, or the Holy Bible? Ambiguity slays me. Or maybe it doesn't.


And that's the first installment of Let's Talk About.