I’m angrier than a Mormon man who has only one wife over the fact that it took me so long in life to find Catholicism. Actually, the truth is that I first visited a Catholic parish when I was 19 and again when I was 33. Both times, I walked away thinking that I’d never do all that standing up, sitting down, kneeling, rinse, repeat.
Oh, how ignorant I was. What I forgot is that the Catholic Church is the only church founded by Jesus Christ Himself and not some guy who called himself a prophet and who slept with numerous teenage girls. But that’s not the point here.
I was baptized into the Catholic faith on Easter Vigil night in 2022, but I technically remained on the books of the Mormon church until late last month. If all you know about the Catholic Church is from what you see on the nightly news, then I request that you read this article before you finishing reading this one.
Ever since I started going to the Catholic church and started taking their RCIA classes, a must for a convert who seeks baptism, I had a favorite hymn. It remains my favorite church hymn of all time. Taste And See, which is based on Psalm 34:1 and 8.
1.) “I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.”
8.) “O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.”
The hymn’s tempo and lyrics are both absolutely perfect. It is the absolute best hymn to play while we line up and receive Communion. The beloved hymn was written in 1983 by James E. Moore, Jr., who was a Catholic composer and a professor of music and liturgy from Virginia.
The lyrics, in part, read as follows:
“I will bless the Lord at all times.
His praise shall always be on my lips;
my soul shall glory in the Lord;
for God has been so good to me.”
The refrain goes:
“Taste and see, taste and see
the goodness of the Lord.
Oh, taste and see, taste and see
the goodness of the Lord, of the Lord.”
The YouTube video that I linked you to above is a recording of the song performed by the Sunday 7 p.m. Choir of the St. Francis de Sales Parish in Ajax, Ontario, in Canada.
That recording is the best one that I’ve ever heard outside of my own parish. I am biased in that I think that the best live performance takes place when it’s selected for use in my home parish for Communion. No one plays it better, I think, than our parish’s musical director and organist. But when it comes to a choir-based recording, the Sunday 7 p.m. team hits it out of the park!
The lyrics and the tempo, as I said, are absolutely perfect for Communion. The lyrics are obviously appropriate and the song is slow enough to match the pace of people lining up and receiving Communion.
I admit that after I receive Communion (based on our self-“assigned” seats, I am one of the first up each Saturday afternoon), I sit down and imagine myself directing a live broadcast of the Communion line. I imagine the slow pans, the crossfades and everything else. How lucky I would be to have the privilege of directing that live.
Anyway, I thought I’d share this hymn because I think others might like it too and maybe it speaks to you the same way that it speaks to me. This hymn was instrumental, no pun intended, in my leaving Mormonism. The hymn, biblically based, beckoned me away from the LDS church and into the loving, welcoming arms of the Catholic faith.
May this hymn bring you the peace, comfort and love that it brings me!