Secular Hymns for a Secular World

The basis for this is something light and secular.

I remember in the late sixties us young types wanted some modern music in the new English Mass. Something from the Beatles or “Bridge over Troubled Waters” by Simon and Garfunkel seemed an appropriate request to the masters of the stone house.

We were told that expression of the profane did not match the requirements of things appropriate to sing in a church. The music must be sacred and approved by the Vatican bureaucracy. So no real music got played in my high school chapel.

In a way that was good, why pretend. Lifting up the spirit of people with secular music sounded too much like the feared Protestantism still lurking about and in spite of pronouncements of Ecumenical boiler plate PR coming out of Vat II.

Going along with the idea of secular music, I ran into “You’ll never walk alone” sung at a public high school graduation I went to. No mention of God in the song from a Broadway musical but with a inspirational and or spiritual overtone. Quite legal under the First Amendment in a secular public school assembly.

Pushing along on this secular theme and secular songs, so why not label them “Secular Hymns”? It is a secular world and if you read a secular bible by Thomas Jefferson about the life of Jesus why not have some secular hymns to balance out the program.

Another of these no God mentioned songs is “You Raise me Up” listed below with lyrics and video.

In a rather unusual way of looking at the secular approach, you in a way go back to where the mention of “God” was too sacred a thing to utter. Perhaps in our secular world, the name and or word “God” is worn out in connotation and or common meaning.

Maybe by not mentioning God in songs or “Hymns” maybe we might come closer to the divine in inspirational type thought and music.

“You’ll Never Walk Alone”

When you walk through a storm hold your head up high,
And don't be afraid of the dark.
At the end of a storm is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark.

Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Tho' your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart,
And you'll never walk alone,
You'll never walk alone!

(Music, Words) Rodgers and Hammerstein

"You Raise Me Up"

When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary;
When troubles come and my heart burdened be;
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence,
Until you come and sit awhile with me.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up... To more than I can be.

There is no life - no life without its hunger;
Each restless heart beats so imperfectly;
But when you come and I am filled with wonder,
Sometimes, I think I glimpse eternity.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up... To more than I can be.


(Words, Music) Brendan Graham, Rolf Lovland.