Questionable Songs

Questionable Songs
Question from on 07-13-2007:
I am a choir member at our parish and we use the Gather Hymnal. I believe many of the songs we use are not liturgically correct. Recently we sang "Let Us Be Bread" with words, "Let us be bread, blessed by the Lord, broken and shared, life for the world." "Let us be wine, etc." Is this hymn O.K., or is it liturgically incorrect? Thank you.
Answer by Colin B. Donovan, STL on 07-31-2007:
While there is an authentic sense by which having become one with the One Bread who came down from heaven, Jesus Christ, we are to be christs to others, unless this is part of repertoire of hymns that reflect the fullness of Church teaching on the Eucharist, it suggests the wrong-headed, "We are Church, We are Eucharist" mentality. In some quarters Catholic Eucharistic faith has been replaced by faith in the assembly. If that seems to be the case, then such hymns are pastorally unjust and uncharitable for the incomplete teaching they communicate.