New, easy to use prayer and hymn books come to Mepkin – Summer 2017
“O sing unto the LORD a new song: sing unto the LORD, all the earth.” Psalm 96:1 has a special meaning in light of the project that has been three years in the making at Mepkin. Musician Eli Homza and Abbot Stan Gumula have collaborated to bring new prayers in an accessible format in the new books for use in the Mepkin Abbey church, designed to make prayer and worship more accessible for guests, the community, and all who enter the church to pray.
Eli brings a lifetime of musical experience to the task. He took piano lessons as a child from a nun in Catholic school until, in 8th grade, he began playing the organ in his church. He became a piano major in college, where he studied all aspects of church music. After obtaining his degree, he began applying his knowledge and love for music and church service as a director of music.
Father Stan, the Abbot of Mepkin Abbey, is an accomplished liturgist. He saw the need to bring fresh, new music to the church. The previous books and materials were decades old and were not compiled together in an easily understandable format. Prayers would be on printed slips of paper, causing confusion for guests not familiar with praying the Offices here at the Abbey. Father Stan and Eli saw the need to make prayer in the church more accessible and take away any distractions from focusing on God’s word. As Eli shared, “Making prayer more ‘user-friendly,’ we will have more prayer.”
They began the arduous process of sifting through the thousands of hymn texts and tunes. They would look at a text that held important spiritual truths and then see f it suggested a melody, with Eli singing the music in his head and playing it on the keyboard. Eli calls it “wordsmithing a tune.” It has truly been a collaborative effort, sometimes merging familiar tunes with different but timeless texts.
All this labor is bearing fruit. They have completed the music that is used on a day-to-day basis during the year. Father Stan and Eli are currently working on music needed for Advent and Christmas observances. Putting the last piece in place includes assembling the feast days into one book instead of individual publications. The goal is to have the entire project fully completed in 2019. What began with Father Stan and Eli feeling a burden for enabling more people to pray and worship has materialized in a real and practical way for people to participate in the church services here at Mepkin Abbey.