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CMN: The Bread of Life (John 6) is a great CATHOLIC song. What helped you
to write it?
FR. RICHARD: It was time for me to write a song about the Holy Eucharist.
I have often meditated upon and preached about John 6. I wanted to let people
know that, following upon Jesus' basic reasoning stated there, the story of
Moses and the manna has a good bit to say about what the Last Supper meant. Yet,
I didn't want to force the "Catholic" teaching. I did not dwell on what my
brothers in Protestant churches do with that text. In any case, Jesus is quite
clear and John had a very strong point to make. He wants us to have life. Eat
his body, drink his blood, and He will raise us up on the last day. Direct and
to the point. Part II of that, though, is the Heavenly Liturgy. Part III is what
we do all the time even outside the church, our spiritual warfare. The
Eucharist, the bread of life and the cup of salvation, is all of that. We
Catholics believe that, certainly, in a symbolic and spiritual sense, we
"devour" Christ and His Truth. AND, more importantly, we devour him quite
literally like Moses and the Israelites ate manna in the desert. This cuts both
ways for all of us, Catholic and Protestant alike. I would like for all my
Protestant brothers and sisters to be able know and receive Jesus like I do at
Mass. "Sir, give us this bread always." We Catholics, in this day and age, who
actually partake of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist ought to
be more on fire, though, with love for His Truth as it is expressed in the Bible
which so often is the mainstay of dedicated Christians of all backgrounds. And
if we study the Biblical text closely, we see clearly that Jesus was directly
teaching the truth about the sacredness of the Eucharistic bread and wine. It's
Him. He is the Eucharist and the Eucharist is Him. We don't just receive him
into our hearts in a spiritual sense. He is the Passover lamb who has taken the
form of the first priestly offering in the Bible by Melchezideck, bread and
wine. We receive him into our bodies as food and drink. I can see why the Church
wants us to prepare well for the great mystery of the Body and Blood of Christ.
If today's Catholics, guided by authentic teaching, loved biblical truth as much
as some of our Protestant brothers and sisters, they would love Jesus more in
the Holy Eucharist. We ought to, as St. Paul says, "discern the body." Read this
again: "I AM the BREAD OF LIFE." |
CMN: You use a lot of older traditional bluegrass/ gospel songs in your
catalog. How did you come by them?
FR. RICHARD: So many of these songs were learned just by playing with
others or listening to others play them. Some of them are just instrumental
versions of old songs which are not of a religious nature. But they make nice
music to mix into a blend like this. Most of them I have played for a long time.
"Father, We Thank Thee" is a tune that was an old French melody adapted to a
text based on the Didache. The banjo version of it probably doesn't register for
most people as the tune that they might be familiar with, but we sing it in the
Seminary all the time.
CMN: Why was "Jimmy Brown- The Newboy" made the title track of your new
CD?
FR. RICHARD: I chose "Jimmy Brown, the Newsboy" as the title track for a
number of reasons. It's a well-known song from the Carter family about a little
boy who is able to express a fundamental hope of Heaven, in spite of all the
obstacles to his happiness, in terms of something he is able to understand,
peddling the news. I always liked the song and I remembered an old Columbia LP
that my mother had of the song recorded by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. The
theme of the song seemed to me to be something that I could associate with my
hometown and the old Railroad station which is an important part of the town's
history. And its one of the first tunes that I watched Danny Davis play on the
guitar in the style that I now play it.
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