Consume Me
Lyrics:Who am I, that You would die for me?
Am I worthy that You should kneel and wash my feet? I'm shattered and broken, but You can make me whole. I'm prayin' with heart wide open for You to heal my soul. Body and Blood, there's no greater love; You laid down Your life for me. Merciful flood from Heaven above; By the Cross You set me free. Your love has rescued me. Jesus, Jesus, Lover of my heart, consume me. |
Behind the Song:This was the very first Catholic song that I wrote.
I remember so clearly the way it happened. I was in my Freshman year at Hofstra, just finally really getting used to picking the music for Mass each week (because I was the music minister at Hofstra). Being a Music major at Hofstra, I had access to the practice rooms in the basement of the music building. So, I decided to go into a piano practice room to play through some music as I picked the song selections for Palm Sunday Mass the following weekend. I even remember that I was a little annoyed because I got stuck with practice room 22, which was adjacent to the hallway instead of being within one of the main practice areas in room 12 or 19. The piano in that practice room wasn't the best either, and it was a fairly small room. Plus, people often looked into the hallway practice rooms as they passed by to get to the music library. Overall, I was not pleased with the room I got, but I figured I'd deal with it since I was just picking songs for Mass and not actually practicing any of my classical music for school. So, I got settled in the practice room and took out my laptop to look up the readings that were being used for Palm Sunday that year. I read through everything, but was kind of displeased with the lack of songs I felt fit the readings and the feast of Palm Sunday. After playing through a couple of songs, I got a little frustrated again because on top of being stuck in practice room 22, I couldn't find any really good songs that I liked for Sunday. So I just decided to play some improvised music on the piano to help myself get over my frustration. I started playing what would later become the piano part for "Consume Me" and without even really thinking about it, the melody and lyrics started coming to me. I had the Palm Sunday Passion readings in the back of my head as I started unintentionally writing this song. All my distractions and frustrations slowly disappeared as the song came to life. I stopped noticing the loud viola practicing around the corner and wasn't distracted by the people passing by outside anymore. The song poured out of me so fast that I brought up Garageband on my computer and roughly recorded the song. The result was the song "Consume Me" and it was completely written so quickly, I barely knew what was happening. I used it at Palm Sunday Mass that following Sunday for the Communion song, and I've used it as often as I can since, whether it be during Mass, Adoration, or a Holy Hour. What a start this song provided for me in my Catholic song-writing career! |