I continued to return to the Ambrosian hymn fragment “Orabo mente Dominum” (found here) as I gave thought to the upcoming Ambrosian Hymns album. Personally I have been listening to it for about a month and think its the best album yet. Mid way through the album is a song inspired from the earlier mentioned hymn which I call Heart and Spirit on the album. It is unique on the album being a true blue rock song in the midst of what I would call very rockin’ hymns. It is almost like an intermission in the album.
I felt I wanted to continue working with that same hymn as I was reflecting on the idea of prayer in the spirit. So this prompted a very interesting experiment that resulted in the cool instrumental song below. I also have two other versions of it: one with Latin of the hymn and one with English. I may post them someday.
Someone could ask why are you doing hymns of Ambrose when you are focused on Augustine? It is a great question. What I found out was you have these two Christian thinkers whose paths crossed during this stage of Augustine’s life. Think of it like you, crossing paths with your pastor or mentor or a good friend and kindred spirit. Also Augustine in one place actually mentions Ambrose’s hymns. So I’ve been waiting to do this for a while to get into something a bit different than the heavy philosophical albums of before. They are good but doing them made me want to do more overt worship songs. Often when exploring Augustine in Cassiciacum I kept hearing the call of Ambrose hymns.
Before I post the video let me supply what I have on Suno:
Orabo means “I will pray” in Latin. This instrumental was inspired by an upcoming song “Heart and Spirit” both songs are drawn from the same Ambrosian hymn fragment “Orabo mente Dominum”. Here is the translated hymn:
I will pray to the Lord with my mind,
and I will pray with my spirit too.
Let it not be only my voice that sings to God
while my thoughts wander elsewhere,
pulled off-course and drifting,
caught up in empty distractions.