Entangling Alliances

March 3, 2017 in Politics No Comments Tags: entangling alliances, treason

In the current overheated political atmosphere, accusations explode like bombs bursting in air.

A few things to keep in mind:

We are not at war with the Russian Federation; it is not our enemy. It is not determined to impose Russian Orthodoxy on the entire world.

Constitution, Art 3., Sec 3.: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”

Russia is a rival, and is ruled by an autocrat. But Putin is a fairly mild autocrat, as Russian autocrats go; remember Ivan the Terrible and Joseph Stalin? Turkey is in NATO, and Erdogan is far more autocratic than Putin.

I see nowhere in Scripture or in the Constitution that the United States is the guarantor of world peace, and is eternally bound to defend the independence of Ukraine and the Baltic states against Russia. Or perhaps of Catalonia against Madrid?

I see nowhere in the Constitution that the president of the United States is the “Leader of the Free World.” What on earth could that mean today? All it does is feed presidential grandiosity.

George Washington, Farewell address: “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world.”

Thomas Jefferson, Inaugural Address: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations-entangling alliances with none.”

John Adams 1821:

“And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind? Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force…. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit….

[America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.”

Perhaps the time has come to unwind NATO and SEATO and all the other alliances that have outlived their usefulness.

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Mount Calvary Music, March 5, 2017

March 1, 2017 in Uncategorized No Comments

Mount Calvary Church

Baltimore

Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter

Lent I

March 5, 2017

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Hymns

Praise to the Holiest in the height

O Love how deep, how broad, how high

Forty days and forty nights

Anthems

Lord, we beseech thee, by Adrian Batten

The Lenten Prose (Attende Domine), plainchant

Common of Mass

Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, Merbecke

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Praise to the Holiest in the height, by John Henry Newman (1865). Like the hymn Firmly I believe and truly, it forms part of The Dream of Gerontius, which describes the passage of the soul through death. It is sung by the angels as the soul approaches judgment. Jesus, who is true God and true man, undergoes for the human race the “double agony,” the one in the garden and the one on the cross. In his Discourse 16, Newman placed equal emphasis on Jesus’ Agony in the Garden and on His Crucifixion as central to understanding the work of redemption. In the garden Jesus felt the full horror and degradation of all the sins and guilt and sorrows of the world. Newman also intimates that we his brethren should learn from Him to do our share in bearing the burden of the sins of the world.

From Newman’s Discourse 16:

“And now, my brethren, what was it He had to bear, when He thus opened upon His soul the torrent of this predestinated pain? Alas! He had to bear what is well known to us, what is familiar to us, but what to Him was woe unutterable. He had to bear that which is so easy a thing to us, so natural, so welcome, that we cannot conceive of it as of a great endurance, but which to Him had the scent and the poison of death—He had, my dear brethren, to bear the weight of sin; He had to bear your sins; He had to bear the sins of the whole world.

Sin is an easy thing to us; we think little of it; we do not understand how the Creator can think much of it; we cannot bring our imagination to believe that it deserves retribution, and, when even in this world punishments follow upon it, we explain them away or turn our minds from them. But consider what sin is in itself; it is rebellion against God; it is a traitor’s act who aims at the overthrow and death of His sovereign; it is that, if I may use a strong expression, which, could the Divine Governor of the world cease to be, would be sufficient to bring it about. Sin is the mortal enemy of the All-holy, so that He and it cannot be together; and as the All-holy drives it from His presence into the outer darkness, so, if God could be less than God, it is sin that would have power to make Him less.

And here observe, my brethren, that when once Almighty Love, by taking flesh, entered this created system, and submitted Himself to its laws, then forthwith this antagonist of good and truth, taking advantage of the opportunity, flew at that flesh which He had taken, and fixed on it, and was its death. The envy of the Pharisees, the treachery of Judas, and the madness of the people, were but the instrument or the expression of the enmity which sin felt towards Eternal Purity as soon as, in infinite mercy towards men, He put Himself within its reach. Sin could not touch His Divine Majesty; but it could assail Him in that way in which He allowed Himself to be assailed, that is, through the medium of His humanity. And in the issue, in the death of God incarnate, you are but taught, my brethren, what sin is in itself, and what it was which then was falling, in its hour and in its strength, upon His human nature, when He allowed that nature to be so filled with horror and dismay at the very anticipation.

There, then, in that most awful hour, knelt the Saviour of the world, putting off the defences of His divinity, dismissing His reluctant Angels, who in myriads were ready at His call, and opening His arms, baring His breast, sinless as He was, to the assault of His foe,—of a foe whose breath was a pestilence, and whose embrace was an agony. There He knelt, motionless and still, while the vile and horrible fiend clad His spirit in a robe steeped in all that is hateful and heinous in human crime, which clung close round His heart, and filled His conscience, and found its way into every sense and pore of His mind, and spread over Him a moral leprosy, till He almost felt Himself to be that which He never could be, and which His foe would fain have made Him.

Oh, the horror, when He looked, and did not know Himself, and felt as a foul and loathsome sinner, from His vivid perception of that mass of corruption which poured over His head and ran down even to the skirts of His garments! Oh, the distraction, when He found His eyes, and hands, and feet, and lips, and heart, as if the members of the Evil One, and not of God! Are these the hands of the Immaculate Lamb of God, once innocent, but now red with ten thousand barbarous deeds of blood? are these His lips, not uttering prayer, and praise, and holy blessings, but as if defiled with oaths, and blasphemies, and doctrines of devils? or His eyes, profaned as they are by all the evil visions and idolatrous fascinations for which men have abandoned their adorable Creator? And His ears, they ring with sounds of revelry and of strife; and His heart is frozen with avarice, and cruelty, and unbelief; and His very memory is laden with every sin which has been committed since the fall, in all regions of the earth, with the pride of the old giants, and the lusts of the five cities, and the obduracy of Egypt, and the ambition of Babel, and the unthankfulness and scorn of Israel.

Oh, who does not know the misery of a haunting thought which comes again and again, in spite of rejection, to annoy, if it cannot seduce? or of some odious and sickening imagination, in no sense one’s own, but forced upon the mind from without? or of evil knowledge, gained with or without a man’s fault, but which he would give a great price to be rid of at once and for ever? And adversaries such as these gather around Thee, Blessed Lord, in millions now; they come in troops more numerous than the locust or the palmer-worm, or the plagues of hail, and flies, and frogs, which were sent against Pharaoh. Of the living and of the dead and of the as yet unborn, of the lost and of the saved, of Thy people and of strangers, of sinners and of saints, all sins are there…..

None was equal to the weight but God; sometimes before Thy saints Thou hast brought the image of a single sin, as it appears in the light of Thy countenance, or of venial sins, not mortal; and they have told us that the sight did all but kill them, nay, would have killed them, had it not been instantly withdrawn. The Mother of God, for all her sanctity, nay by reason of it, could not have borne even one brood of that innumerable progeny of Satan which now compasses Thee about.

It is the long history of a world, and God alone can bear the load of it. Hopes blighted, vows broken, lights quenched, warnings scorned, opportunities lost; the innocent betrayed, the young hardened, the penitent relapsing, the just overcome, the aged failing; the sophistry of misbelief, the wilfulness of passion, the obduracy of pride, the tyranny of habit, the canker of remorse, the wasting fever of care, the anguish of shame, the pining of disappointment, the sickness of despair; such cruel, such pitiable spectacles, such heartrending, revolting, detestable, maddening scenes; nay, the haggard faces, the convulsed lips, the flushed cheek, the dark brow of the willing slaves of evil, they are all before Him now; they are upon Him and in Him. They are with Him instead of that ineffable peace which has inhabited His soul since the moment of His conception.

They are upon Him, they are all but His own; He cries to His Father as if He were the criminal, not the victim; His agony takes the form of guilt and compunction. He is doing penance, He is making confession, He is exercising contrition, with a reality and a virtue infinitely greater than that of all saints and penitents together; for He is the One Victim for us all, the sole Satisfaction, the real Penitent, all but the real sinner.”

Praise to the Holiest in the height,
and in the depth be praise:
in all his words most wonderful,
most sure in all his ways.

O loving wisdom of our God!
When all was sin and shame,
a second Adam to the fight
and to the rescue came.

O wisest love! that flesh and blood,
which did in Adam fail,
should strive afresh against the foe,
should strive and should prevail;

And that a higher gift than grace
should flesh and blood refine,
God’s presence and his very self,
and essence all-divine.

O generous love! that he, who smote
in Man for man the foe,
the double agony in Man
for man should undergo;

And in the garden secretly,
and on the cross on high,
should teach his brethren, and inspire
to suffer and to die.

Praise to the Holiest in the height,
and in the depth be praise:
in all his words most wonderful,
most sure in all his ways.

The tune Gerontius is by the colorful John Bacchus Dykes (1823—1876).

John Bacchus Dykes

Although his paternal grandfather and his father had been firmly of an evangelical persuasion, Dykes migrated to the Anglo-Catholic, ritualist, wing of the Church of England during his Cambridge years. Although never a member of the Cambridge Camden Society, his later life showed him to be clearly in sympathy with its central tenets, as he was with those of the Oxford Movement. He was a member of the Society of the Holy Cross. At this time, antagonism between the evangelical and Anglo-Catholic wings of the Church of England was heated and sometimes violent.

Although Dykes’s treatment at the hands of the evangelical party, which included his own Bishop, Charles Baring, was largely played out locally, Baring’s refusal to licence a curate to help the overworked Dykes in his ever-expanding parish, led the latter to seek from the Court of Queen’s Bench a writ of mandamus, requiring the Bishop to do so. Against the expectations of many senior legal figures, including the Attorney General, Dr. A.J. Stephens QC, whose services Dykes had retained, the Court, led by puisne judge Sir Colin Blackburn QC, refused to interfere in what they saw to be a matter of the Bishop’s sole discretion.[19] Dykes’s defeat was followed by a gradual deterioration in his physical and mental health, necessitating absence (which was to prove permanent) from St. Oswald’s from March 1875. Rest and the bracing Swiss air proving unavailing, Dykes eventually went to recover on the south coast of England where, on 22 January 1876, he died aged 52. Touchingly, he shares a grave with his youngest daughter, Mabel, who died, aged 10, of scarlet fever in 1870.

Dykes published numerous sermons, book reviews and articles on theology and church music, many of them in the Ecclesiastic and Theologian. These display considerable erudition and wit (not to mention a penchant for damnation by faint praise and a fondness for litotes and gentle sarcasm), especially on the topics of the Apocalypse, the Psalms, Biblical numerology and, unsurprisingly, the function of music and ritual in the service of the church. However, he is best known for over 300 hymn tunes he composed. Lux Benigna, set to Newman’s poem Lead, Kindly Light.

Whereas evolving tastes in music have seen an inexorable decline in the use of Victorian hymn tunes generally, including those by Sir Arthur Sullivan, Sir John Stainer, Sir Joseph Barnby and Lowell Mason, some of Dykes’s tunes have proved remarkably resilient, continuing to find a place in twenty-first century hymnals.

Here is a stirring rendition with brass.

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O Love, how deep, how broad, how high, strongly resembles the writings of Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471), author of The Imitation of Christ. The hymn emphasizes the pro nobis: that all the actions of Christ were done, not for Himself, but for us and for out salvation.

O love, how deep, how broad, how high,
beyond all thought and fantasy,
that God, the Son of God, should take
our mortal form for mortals’ sake!

For us baptized, for us he bore
his holy fast and hungered sore;
for us temptation sharp he knew,
for us the tempter overthrew.

For us he prayed; for us he taught;
for us his daily works he wrought:
by words and signs and actions thus
still seeking not himself, but us.

For us to evil power betrayed,
scourged, mocked, in purple robe arrayed,
he bore the shameful cross and death;
for us gave up his dying breath.

For us he rose from death again;
for us he went on high to reign;
for us he sent his Spirit here
to guide, to strengthen, and to cheer.

All glory to our Lord and God
for love so deep, so high, so broad —
the Trinity, whom we adore
forever and forevermore.

The translator was by the Anglican clergyman Benjamin Webb (1819—1885). Webb was one of the Founders of the Cambridge Camden, afterwards the Ecclesiological Society; in 1848 he was joint editor with Dr. Mill of Frank’s Sermons, for the Anglo-Catholic Library, and with the Rev. J. Fuller-Russell of Hierurgia Anglicana. He was also one of the editors of the Burntisland reprint of the Sarum Missal. One of his most valuable works is Instructions and Prayers for Candidates for Confirmation, of which the third edition was published in 1882. Mr. Webb was one of the original editors of the Hymnal Noted, that is, with the music, and of the sub-Committee of the Ecclesiological Society, appointed to arrange the words and the music of that book; and was also the translator of some of the hymns. In conjunction with the Rev. Canon W. Cooke he was editor of the Hymnary, 1872.

The tune Deus tuorum was published in France in the 1753 Grenoble Antiphoner as a setting for the text “Deus tuorum militum” (“The God of Your Soldiers”). One of the finest French diocesan tunes from the eighteenth century, it represents a departure in Roman Catholic hymnody from the older chant style.

Here it is sung at Trinity College, Cambridge.

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Forty days and forty nights is by the Anglican clergyman George Hunt Smyttan (1822-1870). Forty often symbolizes a time of testing or judgment. In the Old Testament, when God destroyed the earth with water, He caused it to rain 40 days and 40 nights. After Moses killed the Egyptian, he fled to Midian, where he spent 40 years in the desert tending flocks. Moses was on Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights. Moses interceded on Israel’s behalf for 40 days and 40 nights. The Law specified a maximum number of lashes a man could receive for a crime, setting the limit at 40. The Israelite spies took 40 days to spy out Canaan. The Israelites wandered for 40 years. Before Samson’s deliverance, Israel served the Philistines for 40 years. Goliath taunted Saul’s army for 40 days before David arrived to slay him. When Elijah fled from Jezebel, he traveled 40 days and 40 nights to Mt. Horeb. Jonah warned that in 40 days Nineveh would be destroyed.

Lent is a time of testing and of growth to spiritual maturity. According to the Talmud, at age 40 a person transitions from one level of wisdom to the next. After Moses led the Jewish people for 40 years in the wilderness, he told them: “God has not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, until this day.” It took the Jewish people of testing 40 years before they reached a full level of understanding. After 40 days of Lent, we should grow into the full measure of manhood: “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.”

Forty days and forty nights
thou wast fasting in the wild;
forty days and forty nights
tempted, and yet undefiled:

Sunbeams scorching all the day;
chilly dew-drops nightly shed;
prowling beasts about thy way;
stones thy pillow, earth thy bed.

Shall not we thy sorrows share,
and from earthly joys abstain,
fasting with unceasing prayer,
glad with thee to suffer pain?

And if Satan, vexing sore,
flesh or spirit should assail,
thou, his vanquisher before,
grant we may not faint nor fail.

So shall we have peace divine;
holier gladness ours shall be;
round us too shall angels shine,
such as ministered to thee.

Keep, O keep us, Saviour dear,
ever constant by thy side;
that with thee we may appear
at the eternal Eastertide.

George Hunt Smyttan (1822-1870) wrote three poems for Lent, one of which became this hymn. It was published in the March 1856 edition of The Penny Post and was revised five years later in Hymns Fitted to the Order of Common Prayer (1861), by Francis Pott.

The tune Aus der Tiefe (also called Heinlein) was published in the Nürnbergisches Gesang-Buch (1676-77) as a setting for Christoph Schwamlein’s text based on Psalm 130 “Aus der Tiefe rufe ich” (“Out of the Depths I Cry”). In that songbook the tune was attributed to “M. H.,” initials that are generally accepted to refer to Martin Herbst (1654—1681). Herbst was educated in theology and philosophy at the universities of Altdorf and Jena. In 1680 he became he became rector of the gymnasium (high school) and pastor of St. Andrew Church in Eisleben. The following year he died of the plague.

Here it is sung at Compline.

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Lord we beseech thee, by Adrian Batten.

Lord, we beseech thee, give ear unto our prayers, and by thy gracious visitation lighten the darkness of our hearts, by our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Adrian Batten (c. 1591 – c. 1637) was an English organist and Anglican church composer. He was active during an important period of English church music, between the Reformation and the Civil War in the 1640s. During this period the liturgical music of the first generations of Anglicans began to diverge significantly from music on the continent. Among the genres developed during this period by Batten and other Anglican composers was the ‘verse anthem’, in which sections alternate between the full choir and soloists, underlain and unified by an independent organ accompaniment.

Winchester Cathedral

Batten was born in Salisbury, and was a chorister and subsequently an organ scholar at Winchester Cathedral, where he studied under John Holmes. Batten remained with the cathedral choir after his voice had changed, as evidenced by graffiti carved into the wall of Bishop Gardiner’s chantry that reads “Adrian Battin: 1608”. In 1614, Batten moved to London to become a Vicar Choral of Westminster Abbey, and was apparently still at Westminster in 1625; The Lord Chamberlain’s Records for 1625 show that at the funeral of James I (at which Orlando Gibbons was organist and master of the music) Batten is described as a “singingman of Westminster”. In 1626, Batten became a Vicar Choral of the cathedral choir at St. Paul’s Cathedral, and also played the organ there.

Here is the anthem at St. Francis Church, Vermont.

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The Lenten Prose is a translation of Attende Domine, a 10^th century hymn composed by Mozarabic Christians.

Attende Domine, et miserere, quia peccavimus tibi. Hearken, O Lord, and have mercy, for we have sinned against Thee.

Ad te Rex summe, omnium redemptor, oculos nostros sublevamus flentes: exaudi, Christe, supplicantum preces. R.

Crying, we raise our eyes to Thee, Sovereign King, Redeemer of all. Listen, Christ, to the pleas of the supplicant sinners. R.

Dextera Patris, lapis angularis, via salutis, ianua caelestis, ablue nostri maculas delicti. R.

Thou art at the Right Hand of God the Father, the Keystone, the Way of salvation and Gate of Heaven, cleanse the stains of our sins. R.

Rogamus, Deus, tuam maiestatem: auribus sacris gemitus exaudi: crimina nostra placidus indulge. R.

O God, we beseech Thy majesty to hear our groans; to forgive our sins. R.

Tibi fatemur crimina admissa: contrito corde pandimus occulta: tua Redemptor, pietas ignoscat. R.

We confess to Thee our consented sins; we declare our hidden sins with contrite heart; in Thy mercy, O Redeemer, forgive them. R.

Innocens captus, nec repugnans ductus, testibus falsis pro impiis damnatus: quos redemisti, tu conserva, Christe. R.

Thou wert captured, being innocent; brought about without resistance, condemned by impious men with false witnesses. O Christ keep safe those whom Thou hast redeemed. R.

Here is the Latin with Gregorian chant.

Here is the translation that we are using (English Hymnal 507).

Hear us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we have sinned against thee.

To thee, Redeemer, on thy throne of glory:
lift we our weeping eyes in holy pleadings: Listen, O Jesu, to our supplications.

O thou chief cornerstone, right hand of the Father:
way of salvation, gate of life celestial:
cleanse thou our sinful souls from all defilement.

God, we implore thee, in thy glory seated:
bow down and hearken to thy weeping children:
pity and pardon all our grievous trespasses.

Sins oft committed, now we lay before thee:
with true contrition, now no more we veil them:
grant us, Redeemer, loving absolution.

Innocent captive, taken unresisting:
falsely accused, and for us sinners sentenced,
save us, we pray thee, Jesu, our Redeemer.

Hear us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we have sinned against thee.

Her is the Lent Prose at Hereford Cathedral.

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Nominalism, Voluntarism, and Amoris Laetitia

February 28, 2017 in Moral Theology, Pope Francis 1 Comment Tags: Amoris Laetitia, Cardinal Schönborn, erroneous conscience, Germain Grisez, Jesuits, Nominalism. Voluntarism, Ockham, Pope Francis, Spadaro

Although we are usually not aware of it, our moral attitudes have been shaped by centuries of philosophical and theological controversies. The ones that have shaped the modern world, and almost always for the worse, are nominalism and voluntarism. They are the wrong or at least inadequate answers to important questions: “Does reality have a logical, comprehensible structure, or is everything dependent solely on will, whether the will of God or the will of man?” The wrong answers to these questions continue to distort both secular culture and the culture of the Church. The distortions are perhaps most severe, or perhaps at least most visible, in sexual matters, such as the question of gender identity or marriage and divorce.

Dominicans in particular have seen in nominalism and voluntarism the source of severe distortions in Christian moral attitudes.[i] Both sides in the current controversy in the Catholic Church over the admission of divorced and remarried persons to the sacraments claim the other side suffers from these distortions.

To begin with the beginning.

The Greeks had confidence that the universe had a rational structure, a logical structure, and that beyond the seeming disorder there was a logos which was at least partially accessible to human reason. The Wisdom literature of the Old Testament was influenced by this, and Christians believe that in Jesus the Word, the Logos, has become flesh and dwelt among us.

Greek philosophy and its heirs believed in the ability of reason to comprehend reality. Philosophers were realists; they believed that our ideas, our concepts, our categories correspond to something that exists out there, outside of our minds. We can form true ideas that correspond to the essences or natures of things.

Plato took this to an extreme with his doctrine of Ideas that have an eternal, independent existence. Aristotle and Aquinas thought that the underlying essences or natures did not exist independently, but nonetheless had a real existence in, not apart from, the individuals in that category. That is, there is no independent eternal idea of DOG, but there is a species of dog and this species is not simply a construct of the human mind but corresponds to something, a nature, an essence, outside our minds.

But for nominalists, only particulars exist. Our general ideas, our categories, our concepts are more or less arbitrary, mere names we apply to groups of particulars. Our ideas do not correspond to anything outside of us; they exist only in our minds. There are no natures or essences. There are only mental categories into which we place particular beings. There is no human nature, only particular human beings. Therefore there cannot be a natural law based on the essence or nature of something, since natures do not exist.

We decide which individuals we will put into a category; we do not discover the reality that unites and underlies a group of particular beings. Our ideas are only names, nomina in Latin; they are based on an act of our will, voluntas, not on an act of reason.

William of Occam is the philosopher most associated with nominalism, and from nominalism he deduced another type of voluntarism. If reality has no logical structure; it is governed solely by acts of the divine will, voluntas. For Ockham, God’s omnipotence dominated to the extent that God’s freedom had to be so absolute that it could not be limited by reason, by nature, by truth, by anything he had done in the past or promised for the future. God was free to be arbitrary, to change at any time, to change the laws of human nature (which is after all only a human category). God’s freedom was undetermined by anything. Omnipotence was the first and most important attribute of God; he could do anything; he was not subject to any higher law, including, some said, the laws of logic, even the law of contradiction.

Since reality does not have a logical structure, morality is based solely on the will of God. The voluntarists taught that God could command us to kill, steal, commit adultery, and we would be obliged to do so; some even taught that God could command us to hate Him, and we would be obliged to hate Him.

Because the omnipotence of God had already become prominent in medieval philosophy, the sovereignty of God was a leading doctrine of the Reformation. Luther said that “God is He for whose will no cause or ground may be laid down as its rule and standard…What God wills is not right because He ought or was bound so to will, what takes place must be right, because He so wills.” Calvin concurred; “God’s will is so much the highest rule of righteousness that whatever He wills, by the very fact the He wills it, must be considered righteous.”

Submission in Arabic is Islam; and both nominalism and voluntarism entered Western philosophy at the time when Western Christendom was beginning to interact with the Islamic world.

Pope Benedict in his Regensburg address considered the analogues of Western nominalism and voluntarism in Islam and described the consequences of this voluntarism:

“This … might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God’s transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God.”

Benedict sees this as a false idea of transcendence. On the contrary, Benedict insisted,

“God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. “

Love transcends reason but it “continues to be love of the God who is Logos. Consequently, Christian worship is “λογικη λατρεία” [rational adoration], worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason.”

Before I turn to how Catholicism has been affected by voluntarism, let us briefly look at how our culture has been influenced by nominalism. Pope Francis at the United Nations criticized “declarationist nominalism,”[ii] and I think this is what he meant: Today a person is a male; tomorrow he decides he is a female; and his reality is determined by an act of will, not an exercise of reason. A family is anything we decide it is and declare it to be; marriage is whatever we say it is. We do not perceive reality; we create it by an act of will. An article I read, I think in the NYT, explained why reporters used the term fetus when talking about abortion but the term unborn child when referring to a miscarriage. The article explained that the parents decided whether the thing in the womb was a fetus which could be cut up and sold or an unborn child to be loved. Will has triumphed over reason.

Roman Catholic theology never went to the extremes that the Reformation did in emphasizing the omnipotence of God, but among the Jesuits moral theology tended to focus on the will rather than on the reason as the locus of morality. The Jesuits were interested mainly in the interaction of God’s will and the human will. This variety of voluntarism stressed that the main content of morality is obedience to commandments, rules, laws, coming from an authority, a will, outside of oneself.

Germain Grisez[iii] describes the attitude toward the moral law that this produced:

“By keeping these rules one would merit heaven; by violating them one would deserve eternal punishment in hell. In this perspective, an understanding of the intrinsic connection between Christian life in this world and eternal life was far less important than a firm conviction that the disobedience of mortal sin must be avoided.”

This focus on law and obligation as the norm of moral actions created a legalistic mentality.

Grisez continues: “Legalism often causes the faithful to view the Church’s moral teaching as an imposition. The suspicion grows that the Christian life itself is a kind of arbitrary test for which different rules could well be devised if only the test maker chose. In these circumstances, the desire increases to do as one pleases as much as one can.”

Catholics therefore tend to see morality in terms of things that are forbidden, and even worse, tend to think that things are wrong only because God or the Church forbids them, not that God or the Church forbids them because they are wrong and destructive. And many Catholics tend to think that God and the church can change these rules and are simply mean not to do so. The moral life becomes a contest between the human will and the divine will, in which the human will pursues its own ends and tries to carve out a space for itself by obeying only those divine commands it has to obey to avoid damnation.

The voluntarist view of morality focuses on the obligation imposed by the authority of the divine will when it promulgates a law. The main point of the moral life is to avoid guilt which is a deliberate and conscious transgression of a known commandment.

The person who sees everything only in terms of obligation has a strong tendency to be a minimalist. How late can I arrive to mass, how early can I leave and still fulfill the Sunday obligation? How much am I obliged to give to support the Church? How much can I eat and not break the Lenten fast? And, the main concern of young males, how far can I go and not commit a mortal sin?

This is not a good attitude for a Christian. It becomes even more destructive when casuists minimize the obligations. Pascal in the Provincial Letters lambasts the Jesuits for their casuistry, for the mental contortions they went through to justify acts, such as dueling, that were clearly immoral. However, he acknowledged that the Jesuits had a defensible motive: they did not want by moral rigorism to drive people out of the church; they preferred to have someone remain in the church and be a bad Catholic rather than leave the church. They knew that some men would insist on dueling and would abandon Christianity if they were told they could not duel.

Pope Francis has ignited with his Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia a controversy over the admission to communion of divorced and remarried Catholics. Each side claims the other side suffers from the distortions of post-Tridentine moral theology, which emphasized keeping rules rather than growing in virtue.

Francis criticizes what he sees as a legalistic voluntarism, a stress that the will of God must be obeyed because it is the law. His critics on the contrary see in Amoris laetitia an opening to antinomian voluntarism, that is, an implication that divine laws can be changed, and that the pope has the authority to change them. Archbishop Scicluna of Malta said, “Whoever wishes to discover what Jesus wants from him, he must ask the Pope, this Pope, not the one who came before him, or the one who came before that. This present Pope.”[iv] —An odd statement that seems to claim the pope is an oracle, like the head of the Mormon church, who can have new revelations.

Some cardinals and bishops, including our Bishop Lopes,[v] reason in this way:

Divorce does not dissolve a sacramental marriage. The marriage is real; it exists until death. A person who divorces his spouse and tries to enter into another marriage is in fact committing adultery every time he has intercourse. Adultery is always a mortal sin. A person in a state of mortal sin cannot receive communion, because his relationship with God is sundered. Therefore, a person who has tried to enter into a second marriage cannot receive communion unless he abstains from sexual intercourse. This is simply the reality of the situation.

The Jesuit Antonio Spadaro, a confident of Pope Francis, responded to this reasoning in a tweet: “Theology is not #Mathematics. 2 + 2 in #Theology can make 5. Because it has to do with #God and real #life of #people…”

This remark was a red flag to critics of the lenient interpretation of Amoris Laetitia, because it looks like Spadaro claims that God is not bound by logic, that He can make 2 plus 2 to equal 5 by an act of His will. This means that reality does not have a logical structure and morality is determined purely by God’s will. Spadaro would almost certainly reject this idea, but he has not explained what he really meant.

Of course, ignorance has long been recognized as mitigating or removing the guilt of breaking a law. Ignorance can be the result of a mental blindness, not simply a result of lack of information. Some divorced and remarried cannot see or accept that their second marriage is invalid and their relations are adulterous. Such people may be without subjective guilt. They want to grow in virtue, to participate in the life of the Church, and to raise their children in the Faith. That is why they desire to receive the sacraments. Amoris Laetitia seems to open the sacraments to such people, and this is in fact how Cardinal Schönborn[vi] and many bishops have interpreted what Pope Francis wrote.

But it seems to me that this approach misses an important point. An erring conscience may absolve a person from guilt, but it does not prevent harm to God’s creation. Even if those who have attempted remarriage are without subjective guilt, their wrong actions are still destructive and harm reality. A sacramental marriage by its indissolubility is not simply a sign but a sacrament of the unbreakable love of God for the Church. That is, a sacramental marriage gives an unshakeable foundation to the family and is a mighty aid for the provision and protection of children, who are the main sufferers from the acceptance of divorce and remarriage and the atmosphere of instability it creates. An erroneous conscience may absolve a person from guilt, but it does not prevent him from hurting others.

Cardinal Ratzinger in one of his interviews recounts a conversation with an unnamed German theologian (I presume it was Hans Kung). The other theologian said it was good that the people of Europe were invincibly ignorant about sexual morality. They were going to fornicate anyway, so at least they were doing it without guilt, because they were not violating their consciences. Ratzinger asked if the Nazi SS men who killed Jews because they thought it was the right thing to do were also without guilt, because they were also following their consciences. The other theologian said yes, the Nazis who were following their conscience and killing Jews were without guilt. Ratzinger sensed there had to be something wrong with this analysis of the erroneous conscience.

The law is given as light to our eyes and a lamp to our feet. It is not good to be ignorant of it. It is not a set of more or less arbitrary rules; it is a guide to reality. It is not being merciful to people to let them live undisturbed in a false world of their own creation instead of the real world that God has created.

Seeing the moral life as only obedience to rules is inadequate, but obedience to the rules is a necessary step for moral and spiritual progress, because those rules are a guide to reality. Moral theologians who tried to get away from a purely rule-based morality and who tried to develop a morality of virtue whose aim is happiness never denied the validity of the rules. The commandments are the lowest rung of the Christian life; the Beatitudes and the infused gifts of the Holy Spirit are the higher rungs. But we can’t get to the higher rungs unless we climb the lower ones first. It’s only logical.

Pope Francis has a taste for chaos, a “mess” as he calls it[vii]; he is, after all, an Argentine. Not everyone enjoys or profits from confusion. As Cardinal Müller, the head of the CDF, said in an interview, “The task of priests and bishops is not that of creating confusion, but of bringing clarity.” Clarity is important because we should feel that moral demands are based on reason’s accurate perception of reality, not on the whim of God or of a pope.

Pope Francis has refused to answer questions that a group of cardinals put to him. The church is often reluctant to resolve a controversy prematurely, until issues are clarified. In the 17^th century Dominicans and Jesuits argued violently about the nature of grace and human cooperation in grace. The Jesuits accused the Dominicans of being Calvinists, and the Dominicans accused the Jesuits of being Pelagians. This controversy was given the name De Auxiliis. The pope intervened; he forbade anyone from calling an opponent a heretic and said that the church would resolve the controversy at an opportune time.[viii] We are still waiting.

Perhaps Pope Francis is following this policy.[ix] But eventually the Church will have to arrive at some clarity and agreement about remarriage after divorce. Morality can’t differ from one diocese to the next. And do the irregular unions that Francis seems to tolerate include polygamous marriage? African bishops have a real problem with people in polygamous marriages who convert to Christianity.

But to return to our own lives and the basis for the repentance that Lent calls us to. We should always strive to be conscious that God’s commands are not arbitrary, but are based upon reality, and that He desires our happiness. Most of the time we can see this, but we all suffer from blindness about particular faults – if you are married your spouse will inform you of them. Sometimes we can’t see why God has commanded or forbidden something, but we have to trust that He can see things more accurately than we can. We should strive to understand His point of view and make it our own, through the study of Scripture and of the teachings of the Church, and through conversation with Him in prayer. His ways are the ways to true happiness, and will fulfill our deepest desires.

[i] Especially Servais Pinckaers, Romanus Cessario and Augustine De Noia,

[ii] “Our world demands of all government leaders a will which is effective, practical and constant, concrete steps and immediate measures for preserving and improving the natural environment and thus putting an end as quickly as possible to the phenomenon of social and economic exclusion, with its baneful consequences: human trafficking, the marketing of human organs and tissues, the sexual exploitation of boys and girls, slave labour, including prostitution, the drug and weapons trade, terrorism and international organized crime. Such is the magnitude of these situations and their toll in innocent lives, that we must avoid every temptation to fall into a declarationist nominalism which would assuage our consciences. We need to ensure that our institutions are truly effective in the struggle against all these scourges.”

[iii] See his The Way of the Lord Jesus.

[iv] The bishops of Malta are merely following the directives of Pope Francis in their interpretation of Amoris Laetitia, Archbishop Charles Scicluna said in a radio interview.

Archbishop Scicluna said that the Maltese bishops’ guidelines on implementation of the papal document follow the Pope’s clear indications. He admitted that he was surprised when the Pontiff, in a letter to bishops in Buenos Aires, said that “there are no other interpretations.” However, the Maltese prelate said, “one has to accept the interpretation that the Pope gives of his own document.”

In a recent homily, speaking on the same subject, Archbishop Scicluna stressed the importance of following the pastoral guidance of the Roman Pontiff: “Whoever wishes to discover what Jesus wants from him, he must ask the Pope—this Pope, not the one who came before him, or the one who came before that. This present Pope.”

[v] Bishop Steven J. Lopes of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter (the U.S.-based structure for former Anglican communities who have joined the Catholic Church) has also written that the Church’s traditional teaching on marriage has not been changed, and that couples who are remarried without an annulment cannot receive absolution or the Eucharist without the intent to refrain from sexual relations.

“Pastoral discernment admits of no exceptions to the moral law, nor does it replace moral law with the private judgements of conscience,” Bishop Lopes wrote.

[vi] Cardinal Schonborn: The complexity of family situations, which goes far beyond what was customary in our Western societies even a few decades ago, has made it necessary to look in a more nuanced way at the complexity of these situations. To a greater degree than in the past, the objective situation of a person does not tell us everything about that person in relation to God and in relation to the church. This evolution compels us urgently to rethink what we meant when we spoke of objective situations of sin. And this implicitly entails a homogeneous evolution in the understanding and in the expression of the doctrine.

Francis has taken an important step by obliging us to clarify something that had remained implicit in “Familiaris consortio” [St. John Paul II’s 1981 exhortation on the family] about the link between the objectivity of a situation of sin and the life of grace in relation to God and to his church, and –- as a logical consequence –- about the concrete imputability of sin. Cardinal Ratzinger had explained in the 1990s that we no longer speak automatically of a situation of mortal sin in the case of new marital unions. I remember asking Cardinal Ratzinger in 1994, when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had published its document about divorced and remarried persons: “Is it possible that the old praxis that was taken for granted, and that I knew before the [Second Vatican] Council, is still valid? This envisaged the possibility, in the internal forum with one’s confessor, of receiving the sacraments, provided that no scandal was given.” His reply was very clear, just like what Pope Francis affirms: There is no general norm that can cover all the particular cases. The general norm is very clear; and it is equally clear that it cannot cover all the cases exhaustively.

[vii] “They wrote a speech for me to give you. But speeches are boring,” the Argentine pontiff said to loud cheers, casting aside his script. “Make a mess, but then also help to tidy it up. A mess which gives us a free heart, a mess which gives us solidarity, a mess which gives us hope.”

[viii] Pope Clement XII, on October 2, 1733, issued the papal bull Apostolicae Providentiae Officio, in which he declared, “We forbid these opposing schools either in writing, or speaking or disputation or on any other occasion to dare impose any theological note or censure on the opposite school of thought or to attack their rivals in offensive or insulting language.”

[ix] Jesuit Father James Bretzke, a moral theologian at Boston College, noted that Pope Francis’ reluctance to further clarify the document and its application is intentional.

“Pope Francis is well aware of what’s going on, but I think he believes, methodologically as a way of governance, that these sorts of issues are best interpreted at the ground level,” Father Bretzke said. “He has by and large avoided the temptation to come down on high and cut off discussion or responses at lower levels, and not just in this area, but many others as well. This is the principle of subsidiarity in practice.”

As to how long the debate continues, and if it eventually works itself out, as Keating suggested, or remains a controversy for the next pope to address, are questions for the future. What the experts agree on is for the faithful to remain hopeful and to pray for the Church. (Our Sunday Visitor)

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Mount Calvary Music, February 26, 2017

February 25, 2017 in hymns, Mount Calvary Church, Music No Comments Tags: Mount Calvary Church Baltimore, Music

Mount Calvary Church

Baltimore

Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter

Quinquagesima Sunday

February 26, 2017

Hymns

I sing the mighty power of God

Lord of all hopefulness

For the beauty of the earth

Anthems

Consider the Lilies, by Roger Hoffman

Geistliches Lied, Op. 30, by Johannes Brahms

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I sing the mighty power of God was written by Isaac Watts (1674-1748) for children, and was entitled “Praise for Creation and Providence.” In 1715 Watts published Divine and Moral Songs for Children, in the preface of which he wrote, “Children of high and low degree, of the Church of England or Dissenters, baptized in infancy or not, may all join together in these songs. And as I have endeavored to sink the language to the level of a child’s understanding . . . to profit all, if possible, and offend none.”

At the time of the Reformation, Martin Luther instructed his followers to sing hymns. However, John Calvin only allowed the singing of versified, or paraphrased, Scripture. By Watt’s time, the psalm singing had become dull and lifeless. When 19-year-old Isaac complained to his father about this, his father challenged him to write something better. Watts then proceeded to write hundreds of hymns.

I sing the mighty power of God,
That made the mountains rise;
That spread the flowing seas abroad,
And built the lofty skies.
I sing the Wisdom that ordained
The sun to rule the day;
The moon shines full at His command,
And all the stars obey.

I sing the goodness of the Lord,
That filled the earth with food;
He formed the creatures with His word,
And then pronounced them good.
Lord, how Thy wonders are displayed,
Where’er I turn my eye:
If I survey the ground I tread,
Or gaze upon the sky!

There’s not a plant or flower below,
But makes Thy glories known;
And clouds arise, and tempests blow,
By order from Thy throne;
While all that borrows life from Thee
Is ever in Thy care,
And everywhere that man can be,
Thou, God, art present there.

Here is the hymn to Ellacombe. Here is a curious version by a Baylor choir. Here is the Fort Lauderdale interpretation. And the Lincoln, Nebraska version. The let us not forget The Hoppers at the National Quartet Convention. (I love the Christian exuberance of America)

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Lord of all hopefulness was written by Joyce Torrens-Graham (1901 -1953) in 1929 at the request of her friend, Canon Percy Dearmer of Westminster Abbey. She carefully fitted the words to the lovely Irish melody Slane, also used by Be thou my vision.

Joyce was the younger of two children born to Harry (Henry) Torrens Anstruther, Member of Parliament and his wife (later Dame) Eva Anstruther (née Hanbury-Tracy). She spent her childhood in Whitchurch, and was educated privately in London. In class, she used to sit behind Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (the future Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother) and would occasionally dip the long tresses of “royal” hair into the ink-well. In later life, when quizzed about this by an Anstruther family member, the ever-tactful Queen Mother declared that she could recall nothing of it! Joyce is the author of Mrs. Miniver.

Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy,
Whose trust, ever child-like, no cares can destroy,
Be there at our waking, and give us, we pray,
Your bliss in our hearts, Lord, at the break of the day.

Lord of all eagerness, Lord of all faith,
Whose strong hands were skilled at the plane and the lathe,
Be there at our labors, and give us, we pray,
Your strength in our hearts, Lord, at the noon of the day.

Lord of all kindliness, Lord of all grace,
Your hands swift to welcome, your arms to embrace,
Be there at our homing, and give us, we pray,
Your love in our hearts, Lord, at the eve of the day

Lord of all gentleness, Lord of all calm,
Whose voice is contentment, whose presence is balm,
Be there at our sleeping, and give us, we pray,
Your peace in our hearts, Lord, at the end of the day.

Here is a lovely performance.

The hymn is sung to the melody “Slane”, first published as “With My Love on the Road” in Patrick Joyce’s Old Irish Folk Music and Songs in 1909.^[The tune is a more elemental distillation of earlier forms, such as “The Hielan’s o’ Scotland’^[ and “By the Banks of the Bann,” also compiled in Joyce (1909). The words of “Be Thou My Vision” were first combined with this tune in the Irish Church Hymnal in 1919.

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For the beauty of the earth was was written by the Anglican layman Folliott Sandford Pierpoint (1835-1911) as a communion hymn in the Anglican Church. The refrain alludes to the post-communion prayer in the Book of Common Prayer, which begins “O Lord and heavenly father, we thy humble servants entirely desire thy fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.” The last verses, with their references to the saints and Mary, were considered too Catholic and were omitted in Anglican hymnals, but we have restored the verse that refers to the Eucharistic Sacrifice.

For the beauty of the earth,

For the beauty of the skies,

For the Love which from our birth

Over and around us lies:

Christ, our God, to Thee we raise

This our Sacrifice of Praise.

For the beauty of each hour

Of the day and of the night,

Hill and vale, and tree and flower,

Sun and moon and stars of light:

Christ, our God, to Thee we raise

This our Sacrifice of Praise.

For the joy of ear and eye,

For the heart and brain’s delight,

For the mystic harmony

Linking sense to sound and sight:

Christ, our God, to Thee we raise

This our Sacrifice of Praise.

For the joy of human love,

Brother, sister, parent, child,

Friends on earth, and friends above;

For all gentle thoughts and mild:

Christ, our God, to Thee we raise

This our Sacrifice of Praise.

For each perfect Gift of Thine

To our race so freely given,

Graces human and Divine,

Flowers of earth, and buds of Heaven:

Christ, our God, to Thee we raise

This our Sacrifice of Praise.

For Thy Bride that evermore

Lifteth holy hands above,

Offering up on every shore

This Pure Sacrifice of Love:

Christ, our God, to Thee we raise

This our Sacrifice of Praise.

For Thy Martyrs’ crown of light,

For Thy Prophets’ eagle eye,

For Thy bold Confessors’ might,

For the lips of Infancy:

Christ, our God, to Thee we raise

This our Sacrifice of Praise.

For Thy Virgins’ robes of snow,

For Thy Maiden Mother mild,

For Thyself, with hearts aglow,

Jesu, Victim undefiled,

Offer we at Thine own Shrine

Thyself, sweet Sacrament Divine.

Here is the hymn version. Her is John Rutter’s arrangement,

The tune “Dix,” was written by Conrad Kocher (786-1872) was born in Ditzingen, Wurttemberg, Germany, where he was trained as a teacher. At the age of 17, Kocher left Germany to work as a tutor in St. Petersburg, Russia. Kocher’s love for Mozart and Haydn influenced him to pursue a career in music. In 1811, he moved back to Germany and settled in Stuttgart, where he would remain for most of his life. During the early years of his career, the prestigious Cotta Music Firm published some of his works, and eventually sent him to study music in Italy. After Kocher completed his studies in Italy, he returned to Stuttgart where he founded the School for Sacred Song, which encouraged the use of four part singing in the church. Kocher published two Operas, an Oratorio, and a few Sonatas. The best known version of “Dix” came from a shortening of Kocher’s “Treuer Heiland, wir sind hir,” found in Kocher’s Stimmen aus den Reiche Gottes (1838). The final arrangement was done by William H. Monk and was published in the 1861 version of Hymns Ancient and Modern, for which Monk was the music editor. (Evan Collins)

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Consider the Lilies is by Roger Hoffman, a contemporary LDS composer. He described the genesis of this piece:

At the time I wrote “Consider the Lilies,” my wife, Melanie and I had spent five years (now twenty-six) following the Lord’s commandment to put the kingdom of God first, believing that he would add everything else we needed. It seemed the Lord would send what we needed in the way of work or help, just when we needed it. Miraculously, we had survived! This allowed us to use our time to teach his Gospel through music. This kind providence had become such a regular occurrence for us that we wanted to tell others about it.

One day, as I was sitting at the piano in our chapel, (we didn’t have a piano at home) I found my fingers wandering over the piano keys. I noticed what I was playing and repeated it so I wouldn’t forget it. Once the melody had become locked into my consciousness, words began to form in my mind,

“Consider the lilies of the field,

how they grow, how they grow.”

I grabbed my pencil and began writing. As quickly as I could write, the words continued,

“Consider the birds in the sky,

How they fly, how they fly.

He clothes the lilies of the field.

He feeds the birds in the sky.

And he will feed those who trust him,

And guide them with His eye.”

I was beginning to feel very excited! Here was a way to share this marvelous principle!

The words kept coming,

“Consider the sheep of his fold,

How they follow where he leads.

Though the path may wind across the mountains,

He knows the meadows where they feed.”

I thought of how Nephi and Lehi had been led on their way through “the more fertile parts of the wilderness…” and how the seas had parted for Moses and the children of Israel. Again, the chorus re-assured me,

“He clothes the lilies of the field.

He feeds the birds in the sky,

And he will feed those who trust him,

And guide them with his eye.”

I was pleased that the message had been so well delivered, and gratefully acknowledged the power that had presented this song to my mind. I was about to rise from the piano bench and go home, when I felt a kind of downward tug, and sat down at the bench again. The message came clearly into my mind, “I’m not finished yet.”

I sat down and the verse began,

“Consider the sweet, tender children

Who must suffer on this earth…”

I panicked. I was afraid to tackle so large a subject. I thought, “My pen is too small to deal with a problem so great.” The thought came into my mind, “You’re not writing this, anyway.” I then remembered someone very dear to me who once said she had a hard time understanding why God would allow little children to be abused, and I had a great desire to help her understand this subject better and be comforted. This urged me on. So, tremulously, I continued,

The pains of all of them he carried

From the day of his birth.

He clothes the lilies of the field,

He feeds the lambs in His fold,

And he will heal those who trust him,

And make their hearts as gold.”

I wept profusely. I could not contain my feelings. The love I felt was so powerful that I was overcome. (Indeed, for the rest of the day, I felt somewhat removed from this mortal sphere.)

My soul vibrated with the message I had just written, for my own suffering and weakness had been taken in hand by the Wonderful Counselor, and where once there was darkness, light by light, strand by strand, he rewove the fabric of my heart with threads of purest gold, so that my affections and sympathies have been, in a marvelous manner, enlarged and re-trained to make me more like him.

This is the way of the Master. He tells us plainly that he has given us weakness to bring us to him. When we come unto him, he teaches, counsels, and heals us, replacing evil with good, pouring himself into us, a spiritual transfusion where his light replaces our darkness. The light he has put into us works its way through everything we know and feel and draws us to yet greater light.

One day, if we continue, we will be like him, for his light will have chased every trace of darkness from us, and will have drawn into us all the light he has.

Here is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. (Alert: anyone with a pre-diabetic condition should use caution when listening to this.)

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Johannes Brahms, c. 1853

The Opus 30 Geistliches Lied (Sacred Song) is Brahms’ (1833-1897) earliest accompanied choral work he composed it in 1856 – the same year in which he composed his Missa Canonica, he was all of twenty-three years old . It’s an accomplished piece of writing that combines a mastery of counterpoint with a sense of delicacy to remarkable effect. It consists of an organ accompaniment to four-part double canon in which the tenor follows the soprano, and the bass follows the alto. The first and third sections of the lied have been likened to the columns of a musical arch in that Brahms uses the same music to illustrate different verses of Paul Fleming‘s poem. For the ‘Amen’ which ends the piece Brahms reverses the canon with alto following the bass and the tenor follows the soprano.

Lass dich nur nichts nicht dauren
Mit trauren;
Sei stille,
Wie Gott es fügt,
So sei vergnügt
Mein Wille.

Do not let yourself be depressed
By sadness;
Be calm,
However God may dispose,
Be content with it,
My will.

Was willst du heute sorgen
Auf morgen?
Der Eine
Steht allem für;
Der gibt auch dir
Das Deine

Why worry today
About tomorrow?
There is One
Who controls everything;
He will give you
Your share too.

Sei nur in allem Handel
Ohn’ Wandel,
Steh feste;
Was Gott beschleusst,
Das ist und heisst
Das Beste. Amen.

Be constant in everything
You undertake,
Stand firm;
What God ordains
Is and is known to be
Best. Amen.

Here is the Winchester Cathedral Choir.

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Misapplied Mercy and Pope Francis

February 25, 2017 in clergy sex abuse scandal, Pope Francis No Comments Tags: Mauro Inzoli, mercy, Pope Francis, sexual abuse

Because I saw how mercy and forgiveness were misused in cases of clerical sexual abuse, I have been suspicious of Pope Francis’s stress on God’s mercy, which seems to lack an equal stress on justice. My suspicious were justified. Nicole Winfield of the AP reports:

Pope Francis has quietly reduced sanctions against a handful of pedophile priests, applying his vision of a merciful church even to its worst offenders in ways that survivors of abuse and the pope’s own advisers question.

One case has come back to haunt him: An Italian priest who received the pope’s clemency was later convicted by an Italian criminal court for his sex crimes against children as young as 12. The Rev. Mauro Inzoli is now facing a second church trial after new evidence emerged against him, The Associated Press has learned.

The Inzoli case is one of several in which Francis overruled the advice of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and reduced a sentence that called for the priest to be defrocked, two canon lawyers and a church official told AP. Instead, the priests were sentenced to penalties including a lifetime of penance and prayer and removal from public ministry.

In some cases, the priests or their high-ranking friends appealed to Francis for clemency by citing the pope’s own words about mercy in their petitions.

“With all this emphasis on mercy … he is creating the environment for such initiatives,” the church official said, adding that clemency petitions were rarely granted by Pope Benedict XVI, who launched a tough crackdown during his 2005-2013 papacy and defrocked some 800 priests who raped and molested children.

[Greg] Burke said Francis’ emphasis on mercy applied to “even those who are guilty of heinous crimes.” He said priests who abuse are permanently removed from ministry, but are not necessarily dismissed from the clerical state, the church term for laicization or defrocking.

“The Holy Father understands that many victims and survivors can find any sign of mercy in this area difficult,” Burke said. “But he knows that the Gospel message of mercy is ultimately a source of powerful healing and of grace.”

“While mercy is important, justice for all parties is equally important,” Collins said in an email. “If there is seen to be any weakness about proper penalties, then it might well send the wrong message to those who would abuse.”

It can also come back to embarrass the church. Take for example the case of Inzoli, a well-connected Italian priest who was found guilty by the Vatican in 2012 of abusing young boys and ordered defrocked.

Inzoli appealed and in 2014 Francis reduced the penalty to a lifetime of prayer, prohibiting him from celebrating Mass in public or being near children, barring him from his diocese and ordering five years of psychotherapy.

In a statement announcing Francis’ decision to reduce the sentence, Crema Bishop Oscar Cantoni said “no misery is so profound, no sin so terrible that mercy cannot be applied.”

In November, an Italian criminal judge showed little mercy in convicting Inzoli of abusing five children, aged 12-16, and sentencing him to four years, nine months in prison. The judge said Inzoli had a number of other victims but their cases fell outside the statute of limitations.

Inzoli was a leader in Communion and Liberation. He was known as Don Mercedes because he had a taste for that car. He also had a taste for b0ys. Pope Benedict defrocked Inzoli; Francis reinstated him

La Procura ha contestato a «don Mercedes», come era soprannominato per la sua passione per le auto di lusso, otto abusi sessuali, che il religioso avrebbe commesso tra il 2004 e il 2008 sfruttando la sua autorità di leader di Cl e di rettore del liceo linguistico Shakespeare di Crema, oltre che, per 17 anni, parroco della chiesa della Santissima Trinità della cittadina. Sono invece stati prescritti un’altra quindicina di episodi. I suoi accusatori parlano di baci, abbracci, carezze e altro ancora nello studio accanto all’oratorio o nelle case-vacanze che ospitavano i ritiri spirituali. La giustizia religiosa ha già punito don Inzoli riducendolo, con papa Ratzinger, allo stato laicale. Il sacerdote ha presentato ricorso e, con papa Francesco, la pena è stata ammorbidita: don Inzoli resta prete ma può celebrare messa solo in privato, è bandito da Crema, deve «condurre una vita di preghiera e di umile riservatezza come segni di conversione e penitenza», oltre a intraprendere, per almeno cinque anni, «una terapia adeguata».

Sexual abusers come in all ideological varieties; they worm their way into organizations so they can have access to money and children. The Pope has not learned his lesson. Children suffer.

Addendum: This is how Don Mercedes explained his actions to young boys:

Un ragazzo racconta che nel 1996 don Inzoli lo toccò “nel corso della confessione” e che alla sua richiesta di spiegazioni, il leader carismatico di Cl giustificò gli atti sessuali “facendo riferimento ad una sorta di ‘battesimo dei testicoli’ che gli aveva presentato come un rituale ebraico citato nell’Antico Testamento come segno dell’affetto del padre nei confronti del figlio

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A Voice from the Past

February 25, 2017 in Catholic Church, Celibacy, homosexuality 1 Comment Tags: Gregory Baum, homosexuality

Several years ago, I attended a conference on fatherhood at McGill University in Montreal. A professor of sociology, a woman, gave a depressing presentation on the rising number of suicides of young men in Canada and elsewhere.

In the middle of her presentation an older man arose and interrupted her. “Stop!” he said. “Why are you discussing this? The real crisis is the glass ceiling that women assistant professors of theology face when they try to become full professors! Don’t waste your time on trivial issues! Concentrate on the real problems!”

I asked who the jerk was and was informed it was Gregory Baum. Ah yes, Gregory Baum, super-liberal theologian and peritus at the Second Vatican Council.

He has gone public with his extremely varied sex life: active homosexuality, marrying an ex-nun and also having sex with men, etc.

In his new book, Baum writes, “I was 40 years old when I had my first sexual encounter with a man. I met him in a restaurant in London. This was exciting and at the same time disappointing, for I knew what love was and what I really wanted was to share my life with a partner.”

He says he considered resigning from the priesthood but didn’t go through with the formality, rather choosing to announce it in the national newspaper. He later married a divorced ex-nun who he says “did not mind that, when we moved to Montreal in 1986, I met Normand, a former priest, with whom I fell in love.” Normand, he explains, “is gay and welcomed my sexual embrace.”

Such a man has guided the theological development of modern times. No wonder the church has problems, from the top down.

When I was in college there was a priest who was on an important Vatican commission. Once I saw him sitting with a close friend of mine in the cafeteria. They were not talking. I walked over and cheerily greeted them and put my tray down. The priest rose in a rage and shouted “Never sit down at a priest’s table without his permission!”

Later I learned that this super-clericalist also had a love nest off campus, furnished with oriental rugs and antiques, in which he and a clique of homosexual students cavorted.

It would be nice to have saints in the Vatican, but why can’t we at least have men of decent character? The medieval lamentations about the corruption of the church are all too relevant today.

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Mount Calvary Music February 19, 2017

February 13, 2017 in hymns, Mount Calvary Church No Comments Tags: Dream of Gerontius, Mount Calvary Baltimore, Music

Mount Calvary Church

Baltimore

Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter

Patronal Feast of the Chair of St. Peter

February 19, 2017

__________

Missa aeterna Christi munera by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

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Hymns

Firmly I believe and truly

The eternal gifts of Christ the King

From all Thy saints in warfare

Anthems

Tu es Petrus, by Tomás Luis de Victoria

Ave verum corpus, by Josquin des Prés

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Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594)

This late mass presents Palestrina at the height of his creative powers. Scored for four voices, with the usual addition of an extra voice (in this case a second tenor) for the final movement, this brief, concise mass is characterized throughout by the simplicity and clarity of the vocal writing, as well as the fluency and charm of its melodic lines. The purity, delicacy, and balance of the part-writing have been likened to that of a string quartet.

Aeterna Christi munera is of the “paraphrase” type, meaning that a short phrase of plainsong (such as a hymn or an antiphon from the Catholic liturgy) provides the melodic basis on which the work is constructed. Motifs) are extracted from this melody and used as points of imitation throughout the mass. Moreover, the structure of the hymn verse (ABCA) is reflected in the structure of individual mass movements as well.

The shorter movements (Kyrie, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei) use imitation, where a melodic fragment is repeated by all the voices in succession, to develop the motifs borrowed from the paraphrased hymn-tune into a complex, florid counterpoint. A simpler homophonic texture prevails in the longer movements (Gloria, Credo), as was typical of Palestrina’s late works.

Palestrina also distances himself from his Franco-Flemish predecessors by his suave, flowing melodies, which contrast sharply with the more angular melodic contours favored by earlier composers. As well, the mass shows unending melodic inventiveness: themes are transformed and renewed from one movement to the next, providing the work with a sense of unity imbued with freshness. Palestrina makes good use of the sense of architectural balance acquired from the earlier composer Josquin, using repetition and reprise to structure the movements, for example, structuring the tripartite Kyrie with cadences in F, C, and F again.

The mass contains a few examples of the technique of word-painting. Particularly striking are his use of the low register to represent death at the words “Crucifixus” and “vivos et mortuos,” while a dance-like triple rhythm animates the “Et spiritum”; more subtly, Palestrina expands the second motif of the hymn-tune into a very expressive melody which recurs with every allusion to the Saviour. (Natalie Boisvert)

Here are the Kyrie and Gloria.

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Opening Hymn

Firmly I believe and truly is adapted from John Henry Newman’s poem The Dream of Gerontius, a narrative poem written in 1865 about the progress of a soul from death to salvation.

As an Evangelical, Newman (1901-1890) rejected the doctrines of purgatory and the intercession of saints, but as part of his conversion (1845), he came to a realization, as he would call it, of the fullness of the communion of saints: those striving on earth, those being purified by the divine fire, and those in heaven moved by love to pray for those on earth and in purgatory. Gerontius (Greek Geron: old man), relates the journey of a pious man’s soul from his deathbed to his judgment before God and settling into Purgatory. As the priests and assistants pray the prayers for the dying Gerontius recites this creed and prays for mercy. “Sanctus Fortis, sanctus Deus” is from the Good Friday liturgy and is alluded to in the line “him the holy, him the strong.”

Firmly I believe and truly
God is Three and God is One;
and I next acknowledge duly
manhood taken by the Son.

Refrain: Sanctus fortis, sanctus Deus, de profundis oro Te.
Miserere mei, judex meus, parce mihi, Domine.

And I trust and hope most fully
in that manhood crucified;
and each thought and deed unruly
do to death, as he has died.

Simply to his grace and wholly
light and life and strength belong,
and I love supremely, solely,
him the holy, him the strong.

And I hold in veneration,
for the love of him alone,
Holy Church as his creation,
and her teachings as his own.

Adoration ay be given,
with and through the angelic host,
to the God of earth and heaven,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Here is the hymn at Nashotah House.

General Gordon (1833-1885), troubled by fears of what happens after the end of life, had a copy of the poem sent to him in Egypt in 1884. He read it on his journey to his own death in Khartoum. This copy, with pencilled notes, was later given as a wedding present to Elgar. Elgar set it to music as an Oratorio, premiered in 1900. Its prominent Roman Catholic theology was objectionable to many Anglicans, and Elgar had to change the text to be have the oratorio performed in Church of England cathedrals.

Here is Peter Pears singing Firmly I believe and truly from Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius.

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Offertory Hymn

The eternal gifts of Christ is an adaptation of a translation by John Mason Neale (1818-1866) of the Latin aeterna Christi munera by St. Ambrose (340-397).

The eternal gifts of Christ the King,
the apostles’ glory, let us sing,
and all, with hearts of gladness, raise
due hymns of thankful love and praise.

For they the Church’s princes are,
triumphant leaders in the war,
in heavenly courts a warrior band,
true lights to lighten every land.

Theirs is the steadfast faith of saints,
and hope that never yields nor faints;
and love of Christ in perfect glow
that lays the prince of this world low.

In them the Father’s glory shone,
in them the will of God the Son,
in them exults the Holy Ghost,
through them rejoice the heavenly host.

To thee, Redeemer, now we cry,
that thou wouldst join to them on high
thy servants, who this grace implore,
for ever and for evermore.

The plainchant melody is the melody upon which is based Palestrina’s Missa aeterna Christi munera, which is being sung today. Here is the Latin hymn which uses the melody.

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Closing Hymn

From all Thy saints in warfare is by Horatio Nelson (1823—1913), nephew of Admiral Horatio Nelson. He became 3rd Earl Nelson in 1835. In 1857 he and John Keble, one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement, compiled the Sarum Hymnal. This hymn was published in 1864. It honors the saints while carefully avoiding mention of any intercessory role.

From all Thy saints in warfare, for all Thy saints at rest,
To Thee, O blessèd Jesus, all praises be addressed;
Thou, Lord, didst win the battle, that they might conquerors be;
Their crowns of living glory are lit with rays from Thee.

Apostles, prophets, martyrs, and all the sacred throng,
Who wear the spotless raiment, who raise the ceaseless song,
For these, passed on before us, Savior, we Thee adore,
And, walking in their footsteps, would serve Thee more and more.

Praise for thy great apostle, the eager and the bold;
Thrice falling, yet repentant, thrice charged to keep Thy fold.
Lord, make Thy pastors faithful to guard their flocks from ill,
And grant them dauntless courage, with humble, earnest will.

Then praise we God the Father, and praise we God the Son,
And God the Holy Spirit, eternal Three in One;
Till all the ransomed number fall down before the throne,
And honor, power, and glory, ascribe to God alone.

Her is a modernized version, but a good arrangement. Here is another setting. And here is a fugue on Kings Lynn.

The pub where fisherman sang this melody for Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The tune is KINGS LYNN, by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872—1958), an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English mnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many folk song arrangements set as hymn tunes, and also influenced several of his own original composition. He collected m this melody, “Van Dieman’s Land,” at King’s Lynn, Norfolk, on 9 Jan. 1905. Vaughan Williams seems to have been an agnostic, but he was an Anglican agnostic.

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Offertory Anthem

Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam, et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus eam. Et tibi dabo claves regni caelorum.

You are Peter, And upon this Rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not overcome it. And I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

Here are The Cardinal’s Singers performing the 6 part motet.

Tomás Luis de Victoria (sometimes Italianised as da Vittoria; c. 1548 – 27 August 1611) was the most famous composer in 16th-century Spain, and was one of the most important composers of the Catholic Reformation, along with Palestrina and Orlando di Lasso,Victoria was not only a composer, but also an accomplished organist and singer as well as a priest. However, he preferred the life of a composer to that of a performer.

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Communion Anthem

Ave verum corpus natum ex Maria virgine, vere passum immolatum in cruce pro homine, cuius latus perforatum unda fluxit sanguine, esto nobis praegustatum mortis in examine. O dulcis, o pie, o Jesu, fili Mariae, miserere mei.

Hail, true Body, born of the Virgin Mary, who having truly suffered, was sacrificed on the cross for mankind, whose pierced side flowed with water and blood: May it be for us a foretaste [of the Heavenly banquet] in the trial of death. O sweet, O gentle, O Jesu, son of Mary, have mercy on me.

Here is the piece performed by the Choralis Constantinus.

Josquin des Prés was the most famous European composer between Dufay and Palestrina, and is usually considered to be the central figure of the Franco-Flemish school. Josquin is widely considered by music scholars to be the first master of the Renaissance style of polyphony.

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Mount Calvary Music, February 12, 2017

February 10, 2017 in hymns, Mount Calvary Church, Music No Comments Tags: hymns, Mount Calvary Baltimore

Mount Calvary Church

Baltimore

Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter

Septuagesima Sunday

February 12, 2017

Hymns

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord

Lord Jesus, think on me

Thou art the Way

Anthems

Meditabor in mandatis tuis by Orlando di Lasso

Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes by Thomas Attwood

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Opening Hymn

How firm a foundation (1787) is a hymn that for over two centuries has assured believers of the faithfulness of Christ and the certainty of hope. The first verse acts as an introduction, giving us cause to stop and ponder the Word of assurance that God has given us, described in greater detail in the next four verses. Those four verses are in fact paraphrases of Scripture passages: Isaiah 41:10, 43:2, Romans 8:3-39, Hebrews 13:5, and Deuteronomy 31:6. In the words of this hymn, we carry with us the Word from God, and the call to trust in that Word. But God’s Word is expansive and not limited to letters on a page — the fifth verse moves us to a trust in the Word made flesh in Jesus Christ. Thus we are assured by the words we sing, the Word we are given, and the Word made flesh, of the steadfastness of God and His unfailing love.

In John Rippon’s A Selection of Hymns (1787, plus numerous subsequent editions), “How Firm a Foundation” (no. 128) is attributed simply to “K—”. Two other hymns in the collection bear the same mark, “In songs of sublime adoration and praise,” and “The Bible is justly esteemed.” The author of the hymn has never been definitively identified.

How firm a foundation you saints of the Lord,
is laid for your faith in his excellent Word!
What more can he say than to you he has said,
to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

“Fear not, I am with you, O be not dismayed,
for I am your God, and will still give you aid;
I’ll strengthen you, help you, and cause you to stand,
upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

“When through the deep waters I call you to go,
the rivers of sorrow shall not overflow,
for I will be with you in trouble to bless,
and sanctify to you your deepest distress.

“When through fiery trials your pathway shall lie,
my grace all-sufficient shall be your supply;
the flame shall not hurt you; I only design
your dross to consume and your gold to refine.

“The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
that soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no, never, no never forsake!”

Joseph Martin Kraus

The tune Lyons is by Joseph Martin Kraus (20 June 1756 – 15 December 1792), was a composer in the classical era who was born in Miltenberg am Main, Germany. He moved to Sweden at age 21, and died at the age of 36 in Stockholm. He is sometimes referred to as “the Swedish Mozart”, and had a life span which was very similar to that of Mozart’s.

Here is a concert performance of How firm a foundation. It has become a folk hymn, and here is a lively rendition.

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Offertory Hymn

Lord Jesus, think on me is a translation by the Anglican clergyman Allen William Chatfield (1808-1896) of the Greek hymn, Μνώεο Χριστέ by Synesius of Cyrene (375-430). Synesius was the Bishop of Ptolomais, one of the ancient capitals of Cyrenaica that is today part of modern day Libya. Early in life he was schooled in Greece and Alexandria in Neo-Platonism. We still have many of his letters, essays, and homilies. Μνώεο Χριστέ is one of 10 hymns that he is believed to have written.

Here is Lord Jesus, think on me St. John’s College, Cambridge.

(Benjamin Britten used this hymn in Noah’s Fludde; many years ago I saw it in the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore. Our friend, the Rev. Alphonse Rose, was rector at the time; he was a baritone, and did the voice of God.)

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S. Andrew’s, Nottinghamshire

The tune Southwell was composed by Herbert Stephen Irons (January 19, 1834, Canterbury, Kent, England-Died: June 29, 1905, Nottingham, England). Irons was a nephew of the brothers Stephen & George Elvey. He became a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral under T. E. Jones. After studying music under Stephen Elvey at Oxford, he was appointed organist at St. Columba’s College, a large public school at Rathfarnham, near Dublin, Ireland. He stayed there only a few months before being offered the position of organist at Southwell Minister. From Southwell, he went to Chester as assistant organist to Frederic Gunton. Three years later, he accepted an appointment at St. Andrew’s Church, Nottingham, where he remained until his death.

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Closing Hymn

Thou art the Way, by the Episcopal Bishop George W. Doane (1799-1859). “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6). In His sayings which begin “ἐγώ εἰμί, ego eimi, I am,” Jesus implicitly makes a claim to divinity, because the name of God is יְהֹוָה, YHWH, “I AM WHO AM.” Jesus is the only Way to the Father, because Jesus alone is God and man and unites the two; Jesus is the only Truth, because He reveals the Father and He reveals the ultimate meaning of creation, which is Himself, in whom and for whom the universe was created; Jesus is the only true Life, which death itself could not destroy, and which through His resurrection and the power of the Spirit He pours forth onto a dying world to rescue it from eternal death.

George W. Doane

George Washington Doane, D.D. was born at Trenton, New Jersey, May 27, 1799, and graduated at Union College, Schenectady, New York. Ordained in 1821, he was Assistant Minister at Trinity Church, New York, till 1824. In 1824 he became a Professor at Trinity College, Hartford, Conn.; in 1828 Rector of Trinity Church, Boston; and, in 1832, Bishop of New Jersey. He founded St. Mary’s Hall, Burlington, 1837, and Burlington College, Burlington, 1846. Died April 27, 1859. Bishop Doane’s exceptional talents, learning, and force of character, made him one of the great prelates of his time. His warmth of heart secured devoted friends, who still cherish his memory with revering affection. He passed through many and severe troubles, which left their mark upon his later verse. He was no mean poet, and a few of his lyrics are among our best. His Works, in 4 volumes with Memoir by his son, were published in 1860. He issued in 1824 Songs by the Way, a small volume of great merit and interest. This edition is now rare. A second edition, much enlarged, appeared after his death, in 1859, and a third, in small 4to, in 1875. These include much matter of a private nature, such as he would not himself have given to the world, and by no means equal to his graver and more careful lyrics, on which alone his poetic fame must rest. The edition of 1824 contains several important hymns, some of which have often circulated without his name. Two of these are universally known as his, having been adopted by the American Prayer Book Collection, 1826:–

Thou art the Way: by thee alone
from sin and death we flee;
and they who would the Father seek
must seek him, Lord, by thee.
Thou art the Truth: thy word alone
true wisdom can impart;
thou only canst inform the mind
and purify the heart.
Thou art the Life: the rending tomb
proclaims thy conquering arm;
and those who put their trust in thee
nor death nor hell shall harm.
Thou art the Way, the Truth, the Life:
grant us that Way to know,
that Truth to keep, that Life to win,
whose joys eternal flow.

Here is the hymnal version.

(When I walked the Camino de Santiago in 2010, I saw thousands of versions of Yo soy el camino, la verdad, y la vida. The private, unofficial ones were the most moving: people painted it on their homes, wrote it over their doors, forged it in ironwork on their fences, formed it in pebbles by the wayside. We were all on the way to Him, but He was also the Way we were on.)

Thomas Ravenscroft

The tune Dundee is by Thomas Ravenscroft (c. 1582 or 1592 – 1635), an English musician, theorist and editor, notable as a composer of rounds and catches, and especially for compiling collections of British folk music.

Little is known of Ravenscroft’s early life. He probably sang in the choir of St. Paul’s Cathedral from 1594, when a Thomas Raniscroft was listed on the choir rolls and remained there until 1600 under the directorship of Thomas Giles. He probably received his bachelor’s degree in 1605 from Cambridge.

Ravenscroft’s principal contributions are his collections of folk music, including catches, rounds, street cries, vendor songs, “freeman’s songs” and other anonymous music, in three collections: Pammelia (1609), Deuteromelia or The Seconde Part of Musicks Melodie (1609) and Melismata (1611). Some of the music he compiled has acquired extraordinary fame, though his name is rarely associated with the music; for example “Three Blind Mice” first appears in Deuteromelia. He also published a metrical psalter (The Whole Booke of Psalmes) in 1621. As a composer, his works are mostly forgotten but include 11 anthems, 3 motets for five voices and 4 fantasias for viols.

As a writer, he wrote two treatises on music theory: A Briefe Discourse of the True (but Neglected) Use of Charact’ring the Degrees (London, 1614), and A Treatise of Musick, which remains in manuscript (unpublished). (Hymnary)

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Offertory Anthem

Meditabor in mandatis tuis, quae dilexi valde; et levabo manus meas ad mandata tua, quae dilexi, by Orlando di Lasso

I will meditate on thy commandments, which I have loved exceedingly; and I will lift up my hands to thy commandments, which I have loved.

Orlando di Lasso (possibly 1530 – 14 June 1594) was a Netherlandish or Franco-Flemish composer of the late Renaissance. He is today considered to be the chief representative of the mature polyphonic style of the Franco-Flemish school, and one of the three most famous and influential musicians in Europe at the end of the 16th century (the other two being Palestrina and Victoria).

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Communion Anthem

Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes, and shall keep it unto the end, by Thomas Attwood.

Here is the choir of Sommerville College, Oxford

The son of a musician in the royal band, Attwood was born in London, probably in Pimlico, in 1765. At the age of nine he became a chorister in the Chapel Royal, where he received training in music from James Nares and Edmund Ayrton. In 1783 he was sent to study abroad at the expense of the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV), who had been favourably impressed by his skill at the harpsichord. After two years in Naples, Attwood proceeded to Vienna, where he became a favourite pupil of Mozart. On his return to London in 1787 he held for a short time an appointment as one of the chamber musicians to the Prince of Wales.

In 1796 he was chosen as the organist of St Paul’s Cathedral, and in the same year he was made composer of the Chapel Royal. His court connection was further confirmed by his appointment as musical instructor to the Duchess of York, and afterwards to the Princess of Wales. For the coronation of George IV. he composed the anthem I was Glad. The king, who had neglected him for some years on account of his connection with the Princess of Wales, now restored him to favour, and in 1821 appointed him organist to his private chapel at Brighton.

Soon after the institution of the Royal Academy of Music in 1823, Attwood was chosen to be one of the professors. He was also one of the original members of the Royal Philharmonic Society, founded in 1813. He wrote the anthem O Lord, Grant the King a Long Life, which was performed at the coronation of William IV, and he was composing a similar work for the coronation of Queen Victoria when he died at his house at 75 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, on 24 March 1838.

Attwood’s funeral took place at St Paul’s Cathedral on 31 March 1838. He is buried in the Cathedral, in the crypt, under the organ.

Attwood’s compositions, which show the influence of his teacher Mozart, are now largely forgotten except for a few short anthems. These include “O God who by the leading of a star”, “Come, Holy Ghost”, “Turn Thy face from my sins”, and “Teach me, O Lord”. He was himself the teacher of John Goss, Cipriani Potter and his godson Thomas Attwood Walmisley, and in his last years a friend of Mendelssohn. (wikipedia)

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Mount Calvary Music: February 5, 2017

January 30, 2017 in hymns, Mount Calvary Church, Music No Comments Tags: Blessed Jesus at thy word, Liebster Jesu, Mount Calvary Baltimore, Sing praise to God who reigns above, Thou whose almighty word

Mount Calvary Church

Baltimore

Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter

February 5, 2017

Hymns

Thou whose almighty word

Blessed Jesus, at Thy word

Sing praise to God who reigns above

Anthems

Perfice gressus meos, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

Ave verum corpus, Josquin des Prez

Thou whose almighty word was written by the Anglican clergyman John Marriott (1780-1825). It is a call to mission, reminding us that the essence of the Church is mission, to bring light to the world. At the beginning, God said “Let there be light,” and now in our time the Father again through his Word lets the light of the Gospel shine into the chaos and darkness of the world. The hymn is also Trinitarian, reminding us that all three Persons bring light: the Father who through the word created the universe and recreates it through the Gospel; the Son, who comes like the rays of the rising sun, “with healing in his wings” (Malachi 4:2), with a light which heals diseased minds and gives light to the blind; the Spirit who at the beginning moved over the dark waters and who now broods over the darkness of the world to bring the light of Christ to the dark earth.

Formerly Christian countries are now mission lands, and are filled with darkness and error. Among us are those whose minds are sick with lies, whose minds are darkened, who are despairing and see no life beyond the grave. The Gospel brings life and hope because it shows that the chaos of the world is being transformed by the light of the Gospel of the Risen Lord.

John Marriott, M.A, son of E. Marriott, D.D., Rector of Cottesbach, near Lutterworth, was born at Cottesbach, in 1780, and educated at Rugby, and Christ Church, Oxford. He was the second of two who obtained honours in the schools in 1802, the first year in which there was a public examination for honours at Oxford. He was also Student of Christ Church, and for about two years a private tutor in the family of the Duke of Buccleuch. The Duke presented him to the Rectory of Church Lawford, Warwickshire. This he retained to his death, although his wife’s health compelled him to reside in Devonshire, where he was successively curate of St. Lawrence and other parishes in Exeter, and of Broadclyst, near Exeter, where he died March 31, 1825. (Hymnary)

The tune is Moscow, also known as Italian Hymn, composed by Felice Giardini, (Turin, April 12, 1716 – Moscow, June 8, 1796), an Italian composer and violinist. Felice de Giardini (b. Turin, Italy, 1716; d. Moscow, Russia, 1796) composed ITALIAN HYMN in three parts for this text at the request of Selina Shirley, the famous evangelically minded Countess of Huntingdon. Giardini was living in London at the time and contributed this tune and three others to Martin Madan’s Collection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes (1769), published to benefit the Lock Hospital in London where Madan was chaplain.

Giardini achieved great musical fame throughout Europe, especially in England. He studied violin, harpsichord, voice, and composition in Milan and Turin; from 1748 to 1750 he conducted a very successful solo violin tour on the continent. He came to England in 1750 and for the next forty years lived in London, where he was a prominent violinist in several orchestras. Giardini also taught and composed operas and instrumental music. In 1784 he traveled to Italy, but when he returned to London in 1790, Giardini was no longer popular. His subsequent tour to Russia also failed, and he died there in poverty. (Hymnary)

Thou, whose almighty word
Chaos and darkness heard,
And took their flight
Hear us, we humbly pray,
And where the gospel-day
Sheds not its glorious ray,
Let there be light!

Thou, who didst come to bring
On thy redeeming wing
Healing and sight,
Health to the sick in mind,
Sight to the inly blind,
O now, to all mankind
Let there be light!

Spirit of truth and love,
Life-giving, holy Dove,
Speed forth thy flight;
Move on the water’s face,
Bearing the lamp of grace,
And in earth’s darkest place
Let there be light!

Holy and blessèd Three,
Glorious Trinity,
Wisdom, Love, Might;
Boundless as ocean’s tide
Rolling in fullest pride,
Through the earth far and wide
Let there be light!

Here (with some feedback) is the International Choir of Notre-Dame Cathedral (CIC) of Ho Chi Minh-City (Vietnam) singing this hymn in opening of Pentecost Mass on June 3rd 2001. Here is a version for four clarinets. And here is the choir of the Norwich Cathedral.

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Blessed Jesus, at Thy Word was written by Tobias Clausnitzer (1619-1684) and translated by Catherine Winkworth (1827-1828). It has many themes beloved of Lutherans: the Word of God is Himself the power that gathers us together to hear Him; the Word by his teaching draws our hearts to love Him; the Spirit prays within us with unutterable groans; we trust in the promise of God’s Word, and are therefore consoled.

Tobias Clausnitzer (5. Februar 1619 in Thum; † 7. Mai 1684 in Weiden in der Oberpfalz) war ein deutscher lutherischer Geistlicher und Kirchenliederdichter. Clausnitzer wurde als Sohn eines Kärrners und Landfuhrmanns in Thum geboren. Er studierte ab 1642 Evangelische Theologie an der Universität Leipzig. Im Jahr 1644 wurde er Feldprediger in einem schwedischen Regiment. Nachdem er 1649 in Weiden auf Befehl des schwedischen Generals Wrangel die Feldpredigt zur Feier des Westfälischen Friedens hielt, wurde er dort Pfarrer und später auch kurpfälzischer Kirchenrat und Inspektor des gemeinschaftlichen Amtes Parkstein und Weiden. Er starb 1684 als Superintendent in Weiden. (Wikipedia)

Tobias Clausnitzer was born at Thum, near Annaberg, in Saxony, probably on Feb. 5,1619. After studying at various Universities, and finally at Leipzig (where he graduated M.A. in 1643), he was appointed, in 1644, chaplain to a Swedish regiment. In that capacity he preached the thanksgiving sermon in St. Thomas’s Church, Leipzig, on “Reminiscere” Sunday, 1645 (ii. Sunday in Lent) on the accession of Christina as Queen of Sweden; as also the thanksgiving sermon at the field service held by command of General Wrangel, at Weiden, in the Upper Palatine, on January 1, 1649, after the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia. In 1649 he was appointed first pastor at Weiden, and remained there (being also appointed later a member of the Consistory, and inspector of the district,) till his death, on May 7, 1684. (Hymnary)

The German:

Liebster Jesu! wir sind hier,
Dich und dein Wort anzuhören.
Lenke Sinnen und Begier
Auf die süßen Himmelslehren:
Daß die Herzen von der Erden
Ganz zu dir gezogen werden.

Unser Wissen und Verstand
Ist mit Finsterniß verhüllet,
Wo nicht deines Geistes Hand
Uns mit hellem Licht erfüllet:
Gutes denken, thun und dichten
Mußt du selbst in uns verrichten.

O du Glanz der Herrlichkeit,
Licht vom Licht aus Gott geboren!
Mach uns allesamt bereit,
Öffne Herzen, Mund und Ohren:
Unser Bitten, Flehn und Singen
Laß, Herr Jesu, wohl gelingen.

The translation by Catherine Winkworth (stanzas 1-3; unknown, stanza 4)

Blessed Jesus, at Thy word
We are gathered all to hear Thee;
Let our hearts and souls be stirred
Now to seek and love and fear Thee,
By Thy teachings, sweet and holy,
Drawn from earth to love Thee solely.

All our knowledge, sense, and sight
Lie in deepest darkness shrouded
Till Thy Spirit breaks our night
With the beams of truth unclouded.
Thou alone to God canst win us;
Thou must work all good within us.

Glorious Lord, Thyself impart,
Light of Light, from God proceeding;
Open Thou our ears and heart,
Help us by Thy Spirit’s pleading;
Hear the cry Thy people raises,
Hear and bless our prayers and praises!

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
Praise to Thee and adoration!
Grant that we Thy Word may trust
And obtain true consolation
While we here below must wander,
Till we sing Thy praises yonder.

Here it is sung by a boy’s voice. Here by a choral group.

Catherine Winkworth (13 September 1827 – 1 July 1878) was born at 20 Ely Place, Holborn, on the edge of the City of London. She was the fourth daughter of Henry Winkworth, a silk merchant. In 1829, her family moved to Manchester, where her father had a silk mill. Winkworth lived most of her early life in this great city, engine of the Industrial Revolution. Winkworth studied under the Rev. William Gaskell, minister of Cross Street Chapel, and with Dr. James Martineau, both of them eminent British Unitarians. She subsequently moved with the family to Clifton, near Bristol. Her sister Susanna Winkworth (1820–1884) was also a translator, mainly of German devotional works.Winkworth translated biographies of two founders of sisterhoods for the poor and the sick: Life of Pastor Fliedner, 1861, and Life of Amelia Sieveking, 1863.

She is best known for bringing the German chorale tradition to English speakers with her numerous translations of church hymns, which were published in the Lyra Germanica.

She also worked for wider educational opportunities for girls and in promoting women’s rights, as the secretary of the Clifton Association for Higher Education for Women, and a supporter of the Clifton High School for Girls, where a school house is named after her, and a member of the Cheltenham Ladies’ College. She was likewise governor of the Red Maids’ School in Westbury-on-Trym in the city of Bristol.

According to the Encyclopedia of Britain by Bamber Gascoigne (1993), it was Catherine Winkworth who, learning of General Charles James Napier’s ruthless and unauthorised, but successful campaign to conquer the Indian province of Sindh, “remarked to her teacher that Napier’s despatch to the governor-general of India, after capturing Sindh, should have been Peccavi (Latin for ‘I have sinned’: a pun on ‘I have Sindh’). She sent her joke to the new humorous magazine Punch, which printed it on 18 May 1844. She was then sixteen years old. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations attributes this to Winkworth, noting that it was attributed to her in Notes and Queries in May 1954.The pun has usually been credited to Napier.] The rumour’s persistence over the decades led to investigations in Calcutta archives, as well as comments by William Lee-Warner in 1917 and Lord Zetland, Secretary for India, in 1936.

Catherine Winkworth died suddenly of heart disease near Geneva on 1 July 1878 and was buried in Monnetier, in Upper Savoy. A monument to her memory was erected in Bristol Cathedral. She is commemorated as a hymn writer with John Mason Neale on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church on 7 August.

The tune LIEBSTER JESU was composed by Johann Rudolf Ahle.

Johann Rudolph Ahle (24 December 1625 – 9 July 1673) was a German composer, organist, theorist, and Protestant church musician.

Ahle was born in Mühlhausen, Thuringia. While not much is known of his early musical training, he studied at the grammar school in Göttingen and then studied theology at the University of Erfurt from 1645 to 1649. In 1646 he became cantor at the Church of St. Andrew in Erfurt. In 1648 he published the Compendium per tenellis, a theoretical treatise on choral singing which was reprinted several times during his lifetime and for a last time 50 years later by his son Johann Georg (the last edition appeared in 1704).

In 1654 Ahle assumed the post of organist at the Church of St Blaise in Mühlhausen. The next year he married Anna Maria Wölfer; their son, Johann Georg Ahle (1651-1706), was also a well-known composer and organist. Johann Rudolph was elected a town councilman in Mühlhausen in the 1650s, and was elected mayor shortly before his death in 1673. His immediate successor at St. Blasen/Blasius was his son Johann Georg, and then briefly Johann Sebastian Bach, who was in Mühlhausen in 1707/08.

Much of his compositional output consists of sacred choral and vocal works, instrumental music, and organ music. He is best known for motets and sacred concertos (most of them in German, some in Latin) contained in Neu-gepflanzte Thüringische Lust-Garten, in welchem… Neue Geistliche Musicalische Gewaechse mit 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 und mehr Stimmen auf unterschiedliche Arten mit und ohne Instrument … versetzet (1657–65). He is also known for hymn melodies, of which three remain in the Evangelical Hymn Book. (Wikipedia)

Except for his collection of dances of 1650, Ahle’s large output of music consists entirely of sacred vocal works. On the whole it is interesting not because it is original but because it is typical of the music written for the Protestant Church in Thuringia and Saxony during the third quarter of the 17th century. Moreover, since Ahle and his son were the immediate predecessors of the young J.S. Bach, who as his first employment held the same position as they did at St Blasius, the state of music under them provides at least a few clues to some of the early influences on J.S. Bach’s style. Ahle was probably influenced by Michael Altenburg and especially by Hammerschmidt, who, though belonging to the generation of Heinrich Schütz, wrote simpler and more popular church music. He cultivated the simple style of the chorale, avoiding polyphonic counterpoint. Certainly the tendency towards popularization characterizes almost all of Ahle’s output. His tunes were for long very popular, and are still sung in the Protestant churches of Thuringia – amongst others that known as Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier. (Bach Cantata Website)

The tune is of surpassing sweetness; J. S. Bach used it in a cantata (BWV 373) and six choral preludes. Here is the cantata with choral prelude BWV 633, 634, etc. Here is a charming version by four siblings – Bach would have loved it. Here in Italy with proper choral prelude.

Here is Albert Schweitzer in 1937 playing BWV 731 on the organ of the Église Sainte-Aurélie in Strasbourg (with an unusual video). And there are that and other preludes in unusual versions Here is Alicia de Laroccha (ah, I remember hearing her when we were both young). Here a lively version for piano and percussion. Here we have it on the flute and organ in Brazil. Here on four cellos. Here on guitar (rather nice). Here for a Japanese recorder ensemble. Here are the Swingle Singers. Here for saxophone, cello, and piano. Yes, here for accordion.

It is a lovely prelude, but I am astonished at how it has captured the popular imagination all over the world, really becoming a part of pop culture, like Durer’s Hands.

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O worship the King, all glorious above was composed by Sir Robert Grant.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” These may be some of the best-known words in the Bible, but in 1835, Robert Grant wrote a text that helps us see the creation story in a new light. His meditation on the creation theme of Psalm 104 consists of six verses that parallel the six days of creation. But rather than simply paraphrase the psalm or the first two books of the Bible, Grant focuses on how creation is a testimony to God’s “measureless might.” And Grant’s beautiful text doesn’t stop at Genesis Two. Rather, in the fourth and fifth verse we celebrate God’s saving grace to his creation. When God took that seventh day of rest, he was not signaling an end. He continued to bless His creation, even those as feeble and frail as us. In the last verse, Grant points to Christ as the ultimate reconciler of a broken, but still beautiful creation.

Grant was the second son of Mr. Charles Grant, sometime Member of Parliament for Inverness, and a Director of the East India Company, was born in 1785, and educated at Cambridge, where he graduated in 1806. The Grants were members of the Clapham set, an Evangelical group in the Church of England. Called to the English Bar in 1807, he became Member of Parliament for Inverness in 1826; in that position, through his persistent efforts a bill was eventually passed which emancipated England’s Jews.

He became a Privy Councillor in 1831; and Governor of Bombay, 1834, where he had opportunity to put his social concerns into practice, for the poverty and spiritual condition of the common people were appalling. He died at Dapoorie, in Western India, July 9, 1838. As a hymn writer of great merit he is well and favorably known. His hymns, “O worship the King”; “Saviour, when in dust to Thee”; and “When gathering clouds around I view,” are widely used in all English-speaking countries. Some of those which are less known are marked by the same graceful versification and deep and tender feeling. The best of his hymns were contributed to the Christian Observer, 1806-1815, under the signature of “E—y, D. R.”; and to Elliott’s Psalms & Hymns, Brighton, 1835. In the Psalms & Hymns those which were taken from the Christian Observer were rewritten by the author. The year following his death his brother, Lord Glenelg, gathered 12 of his hymns and poems together, and published them.

The tune is Lyons, composed by Joseph Martin Kraus (20 June 1756 – 15 December 1792), a composer in the classical era who was born in Miltenberg am Main, Germany. He moved to Sweden at age 21, and died at the age of 36 in Stockholm. He is sometimes referred to as “the Swedish Mozart”, and had a life span which was very similar to that of Mozart’s.

O worship the King all glorious above,
O gratefully sing His power and His love;
Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.

O tell of His might, O sing of His grace,
Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space.
His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,
And dark is His path on the wings of the storm.

The earth with its store of wonders untold,
Almighty, Thy power hath founded of old;
Hath stablished it fast by a changeless decree,
And round it hath cast, like a mantle, the sea.

Thy bountiful care what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air, it shines in the light;
It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain,
And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.

Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail;
Thy mercies how tender, how firm to the end,
Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend!

Here is the tune for the organ, for the piano and women’s choir, for hand bells, for two violins, for women’s choir and drums and stuff, for praise band, for acoustic guitar, for piano and cello, for euphonium and piano, with handbells AND ballerina, for trombone and drums, on the harmonium.

Let us now bow our heads and offer to God great thanks for our choir director, organist, and choir. Let all say, “Amen!”

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Perfice gressus meos, by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594).

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known 16th-century representative of the Roman school of musical composition. He had a lasting influence on the development of church music, and his work has often been seen as the culmination of Renaissance polyphony.

Perfice gressus meos in semitis tuis: Ut non moveantur vestigia mea:

Inclina aurem tuam et exaudi verba mea:

Mirifica misericordias tuas: qui salvos facis sperantes in te, Domine.

O hold thou up my goings in thy paths: that my footsteps slip not.

Incline thine ear to me, and hearken unto my words.

Shew thy marvellous loving-kindness, thou that art the Saviour of them which put their trust in thee.

This is the Offertory for Sexmagesima and Penetcost VI. Text is from Psalm 17 (Clementine Vulgate 16).

Here it is sung by the Trinity College Choir of Cambridge. Here is an arrangement for guitar (rather nice).

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Ave verum corpus by Josquin des Prez (1450-1521)

He was the most famous European composer between Guillaume Dufay and Palestrina, and is usually considered to be the central figure of the Franco-Flemish school. Josquin is widely considered by music scholars to be the first master of the high Renaissance style of polyphonic vocal music that was emerging during his lifetime.

Ave verum corpus natum ex Maria virgine, vere passum immolatum in cruce pro homine, cuius latus perforatum unda fluxit sanguine, esto nobis praegustatum mortis in examine.

Hail, true Body, born of the Virgin Mary, who having truly suffered, was sacrificed on the cross for mankind, whose pierced side flowed with water and blood: May it be for us a foretaste [of the Heavenly banquet] in the trial of death.

Here it is at Columbia University. Here with all women’s voices by In Mulieribus.

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Music for Mount Calvary Church, Baltimore, for January 29, 2017

January 26, 2017 in hymns, Mount Calvary Church, Music No Comments Tags: Mount Calvary Church, Music, O for a heart to praise my God, political correctness, Sing praise to God who reigns above

Mount Calvary Church

Baltimore

Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter

January 29, 2017

Hymns

O for a heart to praise my God

Sing praise to God who reigns above

Anthems

Beati pauperes by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck

Beati mundo corde by William Byrd

O for a heart to praise my God, by Charles Wesley (1707-1788). This hymn has the Wesleyan emphasis on the religion of the heart, which is transformed by the saving blood of Jesus. The hope for perfection is deeply Wesleyan. The Beatitudes likewise point the Christian to greater and greater perfection: Blessed are the pure of heart, blessed are the meek. Perfection is found in love, because we become sharers of the divine nature, and Jesus reveals the “new, best name” of God, Love.

1 O for a heart to praise my God,
a heart from sin set free;
a heart that’s sprinkled with the blood
so freely shed for me:

2 A heart resigned, submissive, meek,
my great Redeemer’s throne;
where only Christ is heard to speak,
where Jesus reigns alone:

3 A humble, lowly, contrite heart,
believing, true, and clean,
which neither life nor death can part
from Him that dwells within:

4 A heart in every thought renewed,
and full of love divine;
perfect and right and pure and good —
a copy, Lord, of Thine.

5 Thy nature, gracious Lord, impart,
come quickly from above;
write Thy new name upon my heart,
Thy new best name of Love.

Protestants, following Luther, tended to think that man was simul justus et peccator, at the same time just and a sinner. Luther used the Ten Commandments in his catechesis, but he thought the purpose of the Law was to show us that we were unable to obey it, and that we had to receive the unearned forgiveness of God. (He did not tell children that they were unable to obey the Commandments!) But Wesley thought that, with the help of the Holy Spirit, the heart, the emotions, the deep well of our being, could be “strangely warmed” and that we could therefore attain to sinless perfection in this life. Jesus in the Beatitudes calls us to a high perfection, and above that perfection are the gifts of the Holy Spirit which supernaturalize human nature and help us to attain to participation in the divine nature, to divinization (theosis).

The tune, Kilmarnock, was composed by Neil Dougall (December 9, 1776, Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland – October 1, 1862, Greenock).

Neil’s father, wheelwright Neill Dougall, was drafted into the army, and died in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) when his son was only four years old. At age 15, Neil became an apprentice on the ship Britannia. In 1795, while he was loading a gun to fire the second volley of a salute to commemorate Lord Howe’s victory over the French, an explosion blinded him and took his arm. After recovering, he began his musical career. In 1798, he attended a singing class under Robert Duncan, and in the fall of the next year opened his own class, which he ran until 1844. He gave annual concerts in Greenock. (Hymnary)

Here is the tune. It has a pleasant Scots quality to it.

Sing praise to God who reigns above is a translation by Frances Elizabeth Cox (1812-1897) of Sei Lob und Ehr’ dem höchsten Gut by Johann Jacob Schütz (1640-1690). He became a Pietist, and the hymn has the warm, affectionate tone of German Pietism. The line “casts each false idol from its throne” recalls the first hymn’s prayer for “a heart” that is “my dear Redeemer’s throne.” The tune, Mit Freuden zart, is beloved of the American Moravians. The tune name itself – “with tender joy” – expresses something of the character of the life and music of the Moravians.

1 Sing praise to God who reigns above,
The God of all creation,
The God of power, the God of love,
The God of our salvation;
With healing balm my soul He fills,
And every faithless murmur stills:
To God all praise and glory!

2 What God’s almighty power hath made
His gracious mercy keepeth;
By morning glow or evening shade
His watchful eye ne’er sleepeth:
Within the kingdom of His might
Lo, all is just, and all is right:
To God all praise and glory!

3 The angel host, O King of kings,
Thy praise forever telling,
In earth and sky all living things
Beneath Thy shadow dwelling,
Adore the wisdom that could span,
And power which formed creation’s plan;
To God all praise and glory!

4 Thus all my gladsome way along
I sing aloud Thy praises,
That men may hear the grateful song
My voice unwearied raises:
Be joyful in the Lord, my heart:
Both soul and body bear your part:
To God all praise and glory!
5 O ye who name Christ’s holy name,

Give God all praise and glory:

Give God all praise and glory:

All ye who own His power, proclaim

Aloud the wondrous story!

Cast each false idol from its throne,

The Lord is God, and He alone:

To God all praise and glory!

“Frances Elizabeth Cox, daughter of Mr. George V. Cox, born at Oxford, is well known as a successful translator of hymns from the German. Her translations were published as Sacred Hymns from the German, London, Pickering. The 1st edition, pub. 1841, contained 49 translations printed with the original text, together with biographical notes on the German authors. In the 2nd edition, 1864, Hymns from the German, London, Rivingtons, the translations were increased to 56, those of 1841 being revised, and with additional notes. The 56 translations were composed of 27 from the 1st ed. (22 being omitted) and 29 which were new. The best known of her translations are “Jesus lives! no longer [thy terrors] now” ; and ”Who are these like stars appearing ?” A few other translations and original hymns have been contributed by Miss Cox to the magazines; but they have not been gathered together into a volume.” (Hymnary)

“Johann Jacob Schütz was born Sept. 7, 1640, at Frankfurt am Main. After studying at Tübingen (where he became a licentiate in civil and canon law), he began to practice as an advocate in Frankfurt, and in later years with the title of Rath. He seems to have been a man of considerable legal learning as well as of deep piety. He was an intimate friend of P. J. Spener; and it was, in great measure, at his suggestion, that Spener began his famous Collegia Pietatis. After Spener left Frankfurt, in 1686, Schütz came under the influence of J. W. Petersen; and carrying out Petersen’s principles to their logical conclusion, he became a Separatist, and ceased to attend the Lutheran services or to communicate. He died at Frankfurt, May 22, 1690 (Koch, iv. 220; Blätter fur Hymnologie, Feb. 1883).” (Hymnary)

The tune MIT FREUDEN ZART has some similarities to the French chanson “Une pastourelle gentille” (published by Pierre Attaingnant in 1529) and to GENEVAN 138 (138). The tune was published in the Bohemian Brethren hymnal Kirchengesänge (1566) with Vetter’s text “Mit Freuden zart su dieser Fahrt.”

Here is the choir at St. David’s Cathedral singing the hymn.

Anthem: Beati pauperes by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, The gospel includes the Beatitudes, so we are using Sweelinck’s setting of the Latin Beatitudes. Here is a performance.

Here is Wikipedia. I am most fond of Dutch names. Plemp is good, as is Swybbertszoon. I also like Dutch stability. Sweelinck started work at 15 and worked in the same church (where his grandfather and uncle had been organists) his whole life No gadding about for him, although once he went as far as Amsterdam. And on his death his son took over his job.

Sweelinck was born in Deventer, Netherlands, in April or May 1562. He was the eldest son of organist Peter (or Pieter) Swybbertszoon and Elske Jansdochter Sweeling, daughter of a surgeon. Soon after Sweelinck’s birth, the family moved to Amsterdam, where from about 1564, Pieter Swybbertszoon served as organist of the Oude Kerk (Sweelinck’s paternal grandfather and uncle also were organists). Jan Pieterszoon must have received first lessons in music from his father. Unfortunately, his father died in 1573. He subsequently received general education under Jacob Buyck, Catholic pastor of the Oude Kerk (these lessons stopped in 1578 after the Reformation of Amsterdam and the subsequent conversion to Calvinism; Buyck chose to leave the city). Little is known about his music education after the death of his father; his music teachers may have included Jan Willemszoon Lossy, a little-known countertenor and shawm player at Haarlem, and/or Cornelis Boskoop, Sweelinck’s father’s successor at the Oude Kerk. If Sweelinck indeed studied in Haarlem, he was probably influenced to some degree by the organists of St.-Bavokerk, Claas Albrechtszoon van Wieringen and Floris van Adrichem, both of whom improvised daily in the Bavokerk.

According to Cornelis Plemp, a pupil and friend of Sweelinck’s, he started his 44-year career as organist of the Oude Kerk in 1577, when he was 15. This date, however, is uncertain, because the church records from 1577 to 1580 are missing and Sweelinck can only be traced in Oude Kerk from 1580 onwards; he occupied the post for the rest of his life. Sweelinck’s widowed mother died in 1585, and Jan Pieterszoon took responsibility for his younger brother and sister. His salary of 100 florins was doubled the next year, presumably to help matters. In addition, he was offered an additional 100 guilders in the event that he married, which happened in 1590 when he married Claesgen Dircxdochter Puyner from Medemblik. He was also offered the choice between a further 100 guilders and free accommodations in a house belonging to the town, the latter of which he chose. Sweelinck’s first published works date from around 1592–94: three volumes of chansons, the last of which is the only remaining volume published in 1594[8] (for reasons that are not certain, the composer adopted his mother’s last name; “Sweelinck” first appears on the title-page of the 1594 publication). Sweelinck then set to publishing psalm settings, aiming to set the entire Psalter. These works appeared in four large volumes published in 1604, 1613, 1614 and 1621. The last volume was published posthumously and, presumably, in unfinished form. Sweelinck died of unknown causes on 16 October 1621[9] and was buried in the Oude Kerk. He was survived by his wife and five of their six children; the eldest of them, Dirck Janszoon, succeeded his father as organist of the Oude Kerk.

The composer most probably spent his entire life in Amsterdam, only occasionally visiting other cities in connection with his professional activities: he was asked to inspect organs, give opinions and advice on organ building and restoration, etc. These duties resulted in short visits to Delft, Dordrecht (1614), Enkhuizen, Haarlem (1594), Harderwijk (1608), Middelburg (1603), Nijmegen (1605), Rotterdam (1610), Rhenen (1616), as well as Deventer, his birthplace (1595, 1616). Sweelinck’s longest voyage was to Antwerpen in 1604, when he was commissioned by the Amsterdam authorities to buy a harpsichord for the city. No documentary evidence has turned up to support the tradition, going back to Mattheson, that Sweelinck visited Venice – perhaps a confusion with his brother, the painter Gerrit Pietersz Sweelink, who did – and similarly there is no evidence that he ever crossed the English Channel, although copies of his music did such as the pieces included in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. His popularity as a composer, performer and teacher increased steadily during his lifetime. Contemporaries nicknamed him Orpheus of Amsterdam and even the city authorities frequently brought important visitors to hear Sweelinck’s improvisations.

Anthem: Beati mundo corde by William Byrd. Byrd set this passage from the Beatitudes, Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God. It is teh communion verse for the feast of All Saints. Here is the Hong Kong Hymn Society singing it.

A Rant on Political Correctness

One of the tentacles of the octopus Political Correctness that is strangling rational discourse is the desire to make the correct bien pensant leftist noises about any and every subject, even if the noises have nothing to do with the reality of the subject.

As my interests are Old English and Old Icelandic, I only occasionally encounter it, because one has to work hard at learning the languages and it is easier to be a leftist critic of modern literature. My first encounter with this idiocy was in an essay about Beowulf in which the critic claimed that Grendel was the illegitimate son of Hrothgar, who was an incestuous patriarchal brute. It was so crazy I thought it must be a spoof – it wasn’t. The second encounter was with a critic who wanted medievalists to imitate their leftist betters. He gave as an example of the right way to approach an Old English literature his analysis of poem Andreas, in which St. Matthew is captured by cannibals. There is somewhat of a negative attitude to cannibals in the poem, This, the critic opined, was an example of Western cultural imperialism which interfered with indigenous mores. He was not joking. And sure enough, some critics followed his advice: “Andreas, Self-Eaters, and the Failed Historicity of Post-Coloniality.”

Hymnology has been contaminated by this nonsense.

Johann Schutz has the couplet

In seinem ganzen Königreich / Ist alles recht und alles gleich.

Which Elizabeth Cox translated gracefully as

Within the kingdom of His might / Lo, all is just, and all is right.

You might think that the reference to the Kingdom of God is crystal clear. No, no. You are deceived.

The whole stanza was omitted from the revised United Methodist Hymnal:

The Hymnal Revision Committee did not include this stanza “because of the perceived ambiguity if not contradiction in lines five and six between God’s powerful establishment of his kingdom on earth and its attributes of justice and righteousness.”

Michael Hahn, a professor of sacred music, nods approvingly at this decision:

Cox’s translation of those critical lines five and six of the omitted third stanza may be derived from a very classist 19th-century British monarchy where the very structures of society were foreordained by God, and thus “all is just and all is right.” Within the Anglican Church, Calvinism was very influential and its fervent predestination would have also fueled such a view.

A 21st-century sensibility would see justice in terms of the needs of the hungry, the poor and the disadvantaged, and victims of racism, sexism and other issues—not in terms of predetermined societal structures.

Ah, the proper noises to demonstrate his leftist credentials. Four legs good, two legs bad. Or today is it the reverse?

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Mount Calvary Music for January 15, 2017

January 10, 2017 in hymns, Mount Calvary Church, Uncategorized No Comments Tags: Christopher Wordsworth, Laslo Halmos, Mount Calvary Church, Songs of Thankfulness and Praise, Tony Esolen

The Baptism of the Lord

Mosaic of the Baptism showing the Jordan in the form of a classical river god and Jesus as a beardless young man

Arian Baptistry, Ravenna

Opening Hymn “I come” the great Redeemer cries. Text by Thomas Gibbons, Tune Forest Green.

“Thomas Gibbons was born at Beak, near Newmarket, May 31, 1720; educated by Dr. Taylor, at Deptford; ordained in 1742, as assistant to the Rev. Mr. Bures, at Silver Street Chapel, London; and in 1743 became minister of the Independent Church, at Haberdashers’ Hall, where he remained till his death, Feb. 22, 1785. In addition to his ministerial office he became, in 1754, tutor of the Dissenting Academy at Mile End, London; and, in 1759, Sunday evening lecturer at Monkwell Street. In 1760 the College at New Jersey, U.S., gave him the degree of M.A. and in 1764 that of Aberdeen the degree of D.D. His prose works were (1) Calvinism and Nonconformity defended, 1740; (2) Sermons on various subjects, 1762; (3) Rhetoric, 1767; (4) Female Worthies, 2 vols., 1777. T

Dr. Gibbons may be called a disciple in hymn writing of Dr. Watts, whose life he wrote. His hymns are not unlike those of the second rank of Watts. He lacked “the vision and faculty divine,” which gives life to hymns and renders them of permanent value. Hence, although several are common use in America, they are dying out of use in Great Britain.”

The gospel is the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan.

John was reluctant to baptize Jesus, but Jesus explained that He wished “to fulfill God’s will in righteousness.” Jesus knew no sin, but he took our sins upon Himself and received John’s baptism of repentance for us, as He would receive the penalty for our sins on the cross. He became the Lamb whose sacrifice took the sins of the world away. The Father was “well-pleased” with His Son who came to take away the sins of the world, for the Father is merciful and desires not the death of the sinner, but that he repent and live.

The anthem at the offertory is Iubilate Deo by László Halmos.

László Halmos (10 November 1909, in Nagyvárad – 26 January 1997, in Győr) was a Hungarian composer, choir director and violinist.

He wrote choral works, songs, chamber music, oratorios, cantatas, masses, as well as works for orchestra and for the organ, totaling several hundred works. He was choir director of Gyór Cathedral and also held the position of professor at the Theological College and the State Conservatory. As a violinist, he was one of the early members of The New Hungarian Quartet.

Here the anthem by mixed chamber choir; here at the Christ the King mass at St. Peter’s in Rome; here by a male choir at Đakova cathedral in Croatia.

The hymn at the offertory is the traditional Come, Holy Ghost.

The anthem during the communion is Georg Frederic Handel’s “Behold the Lamb of God” from the Messiah. Here is Tafelmusik’s rendition.

The closing hymn is Songs of thankfulness and praise text by Christopher Wordsworth, the nephew of the poet William Wordsworth. Hymnary gives his background, and notes the resemblance of his hymns to those of the Eastern Church:

Wordsworth, Christopher, D.D., was born at Lambeth (of which parish his father was then the rector), Oct. 30, 1807, and was the youngest son of Christopher Wordsworth, afterwards Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Priscilla (née Lloyd) his wife. He was educated at Winchester, where he distinguished himself both as a scholar and as an athlete. In 1826 he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where his career was an extraordinarily brilliant one. He swept off an unprecedented number of College and University prizes, and in 1830 graduated as Senior Classic in the Classical Tripos, and 14th Senior Optime in the Mathematical, won the First Chancellor’s Medal for classical studies, and was elected Fellow of Trinity. He was engaged as classical lecturer in college for some time, and in 1836 was chosen Public Orator for the University. In the same year he was elected Head Master of Harrow School, and in 1838 he married Susan Hatley Freere. During his head-mastership the numbers at Harrow fell off, but he began a great moral reform in the school, and many of his pupils regarded him with enthusiastic admiration. In 1844 he was appointed by Sir Robert Peel to a Canonry at Westminster; and in 1848-49 he was Hulsean lecturer at Cambridge. In 1850 he took the small chapter living of Stanford-in-the-Vale cum Goosey, in Berkshire, and for the next nineteen years he passed his time as an exemplary parish priest in this retired spot, with the exception of his four months’ statutable residence each year at Westminster. In 1869 he was elevated to the bishopric of Lincoln, which he held for more than fifteen years, resigning it a few months before his death, which took place on March 20th, 1885. As bearing upon his poetical character, it may be noted that he was the nephew of the poet-laureate, William Wordsworth, whom he constantly visited at Rydal up to the time of the poet’s death in 1850, and with whom he kept up a regular and lengthy correspondence.

Of his many works, however, the only one which claims notice from the hymnologist’s point of view is The Holy Year, which contains hymns, not only for every season of the Church’s year, but also for every phase of that season, as indicated in the Book of Common Prayer. Dr. Wordsworth, like the Wesleys, looked upon hymns as a valuable means of stamping permanently upon the memory the great doctrines of the Christian Church. He held it to be “the first duty of a hymn-writer to teach sound doctrine, and thus to save souls.” He thought that the materials for English Church hymns should be sought (1) in the Holy Scriptures, (2) in the writings of Christian Antiquity, and (3) in the Poetry of the Ancient Church. Hence he imposed upon himself the strictest limitations in his own compositions. He did not select a subject which seemed to him most adapted for poetical treatment, but felt himself bound to treat impartially every subject, and branch of a subject, that is brought before us in the Church’s services, whether of a poetical nature or not. The natural result is that his hymns are of very unequal merit; whether his subject inspired him with poetical thoughts or not, he was bound to deal with it; hence while some of his hymns (such as “Hark! the sound of holy voices,” &c, “See the Conqueror mounts in triumph,” &c, “O, day of rest and gladness”) are of a high order of excellence, others are prosaic. He was particularly anxious to avoid obscurity, and thus many of his hymns are simple to the verge of baldness. But this extreme simplicity was always intentional, and to those who can read between the lines there are many traces of the “ars celans artem.” It is somewhat remarkable that though in citing examples of early hymnwriters he almost always refers to those of the Western Church, his own hymns more nearly resemble those of the Eastern, as may be seen by comparing The Holy Year with Dr. Mason Neale’s Hymns of the Eastern Church translated, with Notes, &c. The reason of this perhaps half-unconscious resemblance is not far to seek. Christopher Wordsworth, like the Greek hymnwriters, drew his inspiration from Holy Scripture, and he loved, as they did, to interpret Holy Scripture mystically. He thought that ”the dangers to which the Faith of England (especially in regard to the Old Testament) was exposed, arose from the abandonment of the ancient Christian, Apostolic and Patristic system of interpretation of the Old Testament for the frigid and servile modern exegesis of the literalists, who see nothing in the Old Testament but a common history, and who read it (as St. Paul says the Jews do) ‘with a veil on their heart, which veil’ (he adds) ‘is done away in Christ.'” In the same spirit, he sought and found Christ everywhere in the New Testament. The Gospel History was only the history of what “Jesus began to do and to teach” on earth; the Acts of the Apostles and all the Epistles were the history of what he continued to do and to teach from Heaven; and the Apocalypse (perhaps his favourite book) was “the seal and colophon of all.” Naturally he presents this theory, a theory most susceptible of poetical treatment, in his hymns even more prominently than in his other writings. The Greek writers took, more or less, the same view; hence the resemblance between his hymns and those of the Eastern Church. [Rev. J. H. Overton, D.D.]

Here it is sung at St. John’s in Detroit.

Tony Esolen wrote about this hymn in Touchstone; the mutilations it has suffered from those who find the word “man” hateful and offensive are an especial object of his opprobrium:

When reciting the Nicene Creed, Roman Catholics are supposed to bow in solemn adoration when they come to the following words: Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria virgine, et homo factus est. The Incarnation is the heart of the Christian faith: a work of breathtaking love, not simply that God would make man in his image, but that he would descend to pitch his tent among us. Christ is the eternal Word of God, but his moments will be measured out by a beating heart, and his boundless wisdom will dwell within our small swaddling of flesh.

Yet this manhood, once assumed, is not discarded. It is made sublime. To quote Milton:

Therefore thy humiliation shall exalt

With thee thy manhood also to this throne:

Here shalt thou sit incarnate, here shalt reign

Both God and Man, Son both of God and man,

Anointed universal King.

If all our sins originate in, and are summed up by, the pride of Adam, so all our salvation comes from the obedience of Jesus Christ. That is why St. Paul urges us to exchange man for man: “Put off concerning the former conversation the old man . . . [and] put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:22,24).

The wonder of the Incarnation is the subject of Christopher Wordsworth’s hymn for Epiphany, “Songs of Thankfulness and Praise.” Each of the stanzas ends with the euphonious line, “God in man made manifest.” Now, “man” and “manifest” are etymologically unrelated, but their similarity in English makes the line peculiarly effective. Ever since Jesus appeared in the world, God has had a human face. When the Apostle Philip, an earnest fellow though a tad slow, asked Jesus to show them the Father, our Lord replied, “Have I been so long a time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9).

So the poem proceeds from one manifestation of Jesus to the next. We begin with the first Epiphany:

Songs of thankfulness and praise,

Jesus, Lord, to thee we raise,

Manifested by the star

To the sages from afar;

Branch of royal David’s stem

In thy birth at Bethlehem;

Anthems be to thee addrest,

God in man made manifest.

The star led the eastern sages to the home at Bethlehem, where they beheld the little boy, the Son of David. It was no earthshaking manifestation. The astronomical sign, whatever it was, seems to have escaped the notice of the Jews themselves, whom the Son of David most concerned. But we follow the sages to the lowly dwelling, and to the child who was far more than they knew.

The foolish editors of the Canadian Book of Worship III could not abide the word “man,” which of course is the focus of the whole poem, so they changed the phrase to “in flesh” in the first stanza, and to “on earth” in the second. They omitted the third stanza altogether. What they did to the fourth, I will show soon.

But the original, not emasculated, not impersonal, brings us the man Jesus, revealed—at first still in a half-secret way—as walking and speaking and celebrating among the people of his time and place, and as filled with divine power:

Manifest at Jordan’s stream,

Prophet, Priest, and King supreme;

And at Cana, wedding guest,

In thy Godhead manifest;

Manifest in power divine,

Changing water into wine;

Anthems be to thee addrest,

God in man made manifest.

From the gently luminous miracle at Cana, remarked perhaps by only a few, where Jesus, to whose wedding feast all men are called, was only one guest among the crowd, we turn to the wonders he performed on the open hillsides and in the village squares, healing the sick. That leads in turn to the greatest victory over our ills, that of the divine physician giving his life for the dead, and killing the power of the evil one:

Manifest in making whole

Palsied limb and fainting soul;

Manifest in valiant fight,

Quelling all the devil’s might;

Manifest in gracious will,

Ever bringing good from ill;

Anthems be to thee addrest,

God in man made manifest.

“Not my will but thine be done,” said Jesus in the garden. This stanza, with its insistent repetition of the word “manifest,” leads the singer to consider when our Lord was most poignantly revealed to the world. That was when he was stripped and nailed to the cross, raised up before the eyes of us sinners, naked in his loving might and in his assumption of all our infirmities.

The final stanza is a plea that the Lord will continue to manifest himself to us, both in the sacred Scripture and in our lives, when we have been blessed with the indwelling Spirit. That will bring us to the consummate epiphany. In the words of St. John, which the poet clearly has in mind: “When he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

The vile emendation in Worship III inadvertently reveals the pride behind any refusal to take the word of God, and the Word of God, as they are: “God in us made manifest.” Sorry, but we long to be made holy, not so that we may gaze, Narcissus-like, on our own divine beauty, but so that we can look upon the Lord, and find our beauty in him. By his grace we will then be keener-sighted than the eastern sages, the curious onlookers at the Jordan, the sick in soul and body, and the many foes and the few friends beneath the cross. We will see him, says St. John, as he is. Nothing need be added to that; nor let anything be detracted. Here, as is just, the poet ends:

Grant us grace to see thee, Lord,

Mirrored in thy holy word;

May we imitate thee now,

And be pure, as pure art thou;

That we like to thee may be

At thy great epiphany;

And may praise thee, ever blest,

God in man made manifest. •

Read more: http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=25-01-010-c#ixzz4VN8nzc6l

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Mount Calvary Epiphany 2017 Closing Hymn

January 4, 2017 in hymns, Mount Calvary Church No Comments Tags: as with gladness men of old, uncreated light

The young Anglican layman William Chatterton Dix (1837–1898), an insurance salesman, was ill on Epiphany 1859 and could not attend services. On his sickbed he wrote #52 As with gladness men of old. He calls us to imitate the Wise Men, seeking Jesus and offering Him our treasures. Dix uses a concept unfamiliar to Western Christians, but prominent in the Eastern Church: uncreated light. In this life we have a created star to guide us, but it guides us to “the country bright” where we see the uncreated light of God Himself. “The city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light shall the nations walk; and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it.” (Rev 21:23-24).

For those interested in the Eastern doctrine of teh Uncreated Light, see Solrunn Nes’s Uncreated Light.

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Mount Calvary Epiphany 2017 Offertory Hymn

January 4, 2017 in hymns, Mount Calvary Church No Comments Tags: Bach, bridal mysticism, Mount Calvary, Wie schon leuctet

Mount Calvary Epiphany Offertory Hymn: #329 How bright appears the morning star. William Mercer in 1859 paraphrased “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern,” Philip Nicolai wrote in 1597, during a terrible pestilence. Nicolai, a Lutheran mister, saw thirty parishioners a day buried under his window. The original version of the hymn uses the extravagant language of bridal mysticism. William Mercer changed it into a sober celebration of God’s love and power, manifested in the Incarnation.

Wikipedia: The words in seven stanzas are based on Psalms 45, a mystical wedding song. Jesus is identified with the morning star, according to Revelation 22:11, and with the bridegroom of the psalm. Nicolai wrote the words in response to a pestilence in 1597. He published the chorale first in 1599 in his book Frewdenspiegel deß ewigen Lebens (“Mirror of Joy of the Life Everlasting”) in Frankfurt, together with “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme”. He introduced it: “Ein Geistlich Brautlied der Gläubigen Seelen / von Jesu Christo irem himlischen Bräutgam: Gestellt ober den 45. Psalm deß Propheten Dauids” (A spiritual bridal song of the believing soul / concerning Jesus Christ, her heavenly bridegroom, founded on the 45th Psalm of the prophet David). This hymn is often referred to as “The Queen of Chorales”.

Here are the original stanzas:

Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern

Voll Gnad’ und Wahrheit von dem Herrn,

Die süße Wurzel Jesse!

Du Sohn David zus Jakobs Stamm,

Mein König und mein Bräutigam,

Hast mir mein Herz besessen,

Lieblich, freundlich,

Schön und herrlich, groß und ehrlich,

Reich von Gaben,

Hoch und sehr prächtig erhaben!

How beautifully shines the morning star

full of grace and truth from the Lord,

the sweet root of Jesse!

You son of David from the line of Jacob,

my king and my bridegroom,

have taken posession of my heart,

[you who are] lovely, friendly,

beautiful and glorious, great and honourable,

rich in gifts,

lofty and exalted in splendour!

2

Ei meine Perl’, du werte Kron’,

Wahr’r Gottes- und Mariensohn,

Ein hochgeborner König!

Mein Herz heißt dich ein Lilium,

Dein süßes Evangelium

Ist lauter Milch und Honig.

Ei mein Blümlein,

Hosianna, himmlisch Manna,

Das wir essen,

Deiner kann ich nicht vergessen!

Ah my pearl, my precious crown,

true son of God and Mary,

a king of most noble birth!

My heart calls you a lily,

your sweet gospel

is pure milk and honey.

Ah my dear flower,

hosanna, heavenly manna,

that we eat,

I cannot forget you!

3

Geuss sehr tief in mein Herz hinein,

Du heller Jaspis und Rubin,

Die Flamme deiner Liebe

Und erfreu’ mich, daß ich doch bleib’

An deinem auserwählten Leib

Ein’ lebendige Rippe!

Nach dir ist mir,

Gratiosa coeli rosa,

Krank und glimmet

Mein Herz, durch Liebe verwundet.

Pour most deeply within my heart,

you clear jasper and ruby,

the flames of your love,

and make me rejoice, so that I may remain

in your chosen body

a living rib!

Because of you,

gracious rose of heaven,

my heart is sick and smouldering,

wounded with love.

4

Von Gott kommt mir ein Freudenschein,

Wenn du mit deinen Äugelein

Mich freundlich tust anblicken.

O Herr Jesu, mein trautes Gut,

Dein Wort, dein Geist, dein Leib und Blut

Mich innerlich erquicken!

Nimm mich freundlich

In dein’ Arme, daß ich warme

Werd’ von Gnaden!

Auf dein Wort komm’ ich geladen.

A joyful light from God comes to me

when with your dear eyes

you look on me as a friend.

Oh Lord Jesus, my beloved good,

your word, your spirit, your body and blood

refresh me within.

Take me like a friend

in your arms, so that I may become warm

with your grace

To your word I come invited.

5

Herr Gott Vater, mein starker Held,

Du hast mich ewig vor der Welt

In deinem Sohn geliebet.

Dein Sohn hat mich ihm selbst vertraut,

Er ist mein Schatz, ich bin sein’ Braut,

Sehr hoch in ihm erfreuet.

Eia, eia,

Himmlisch Leben wird er geben

Mir dort oben!

Ewig soll mein Herz ihn loben.

Lord, God,Father, my mighty hero,

before the world you have

loved me in your son.

Your son has betrothed me to himself,

he is my treasure, I am his bride,

most greatly I rejoice in him.

Yes, yes.

Heavenly life he will give me

in the the world above!

My heart shall praise him for ever.

6

Zwingt die Saiten in Zithara

Und laßt die süße Musika

Ganz freudenreich erschallen,

Daß ich möge mit Jesulein,

Dem wunderschönen Bräut’gam mein,

In steter Liebe wallen!

Singet, springet,

Jubilieret, triumphieret,

Dankt dem Herren!

Groß ist der König der Ehren!

Pluck the strings on the harp

and let the sweet music

resound full of joy,

so that with dear Jesus,

my most beautiful bridegroom,

in constant love I may make my pilgrimage!

Sing, leap,

rejoice, triumph,

thank the Lord!

Great is the king of honour!

7

Wie bin ich doch so herzlich froh,

Daß mein Schatz ist das A und O.

Der Anfang und das Ende!

Er wird mich doch zu seinem Preis

Aufnehmen in das Paradeis,

Des klopf’ ich in die Hände.

Amen! Amen!

Komm, du schöne Freudenkrone,

Bleib nicht lange,

Deiner wart’ ich mit Verlangen!

How full I am therefore of heartfelt joy

that my treasure is the alpha and the omega,

the beginning and the end;

To his reward he will

take me up to paradise,

and so I clap my hands

Amen! Amen!

Come, you sweet crown of joy,

do not long delay,

I wait for you with longing.

Bach used only the first and last stanzas in his cantata #1 “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern” and changed it into a celebration of the Annunciation by the addition of the recitative:

Du wahrer Gottes und Marien Sohn,

Du König derer Auserwählten,

Wie süß ist uns dies Lebenswort,

Nach dem die ersten Väter schon

So Jahr’ als Tage zählten,

Das Gabriel mit Freuden dort

In Bethlehem verheißen!

O Süßigkeit, o Himmelsbrot,

Das weder Grab, Gefahr noch Tod

Aus unsern Herzen reißen.

You, very son of God and Mary,

You, king of the chosen ones,

how sweet is Your living word to us,

by which our forefathers already

counted years as well as days,

that Gabriel joyfully

promised there in Bethlehem!

O sweetness, o bread of heaven,

that neither grave, danger or death

can wrest from our hearts.

Bach seems to be referring to the custom of starting the new year on March 25, the date of the Incarnation.

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Mount Calvary Epiphany 2017 Opening Hymn

January 3, 2017 in hymns, Mount Calvary Church No Comments Tags: Epiphany, Praetorius, quae stella sole pulcrior, What star is this

The opening hymn for Epiphany 2017 is What Star is This, to Praetorius’ melody puer nobis.

Charles Coffin, born at Buzaney (Ardennes) in 1676, died 1749, was principal of the college at Beauvais, 1712, and rector of the University of Paris, 1718. He published in 1727 some of his Latin poems, for which he was already noted, and in 1736 the bulk of his hymns, including Quae stella sole pulcrior, appeared in the Paris Breviary of that year.

Quæ stella sole pulcrior

Coruscat? hæc Regis novi

Revelat ortus; hæc Dei

Præsignat ad cunas iter.

Stat vatibus priscis sides:

En stella surgit ex Jacob;

Arrectus ad spectaculum

Eous orbis emicat.

Dum sidus admonet foris,

Lux fulget intus clarior;

Suadetque vi blandâ Magos

Signi datorem quærere.

Segnes amor nescit moras;

Labor, pericla nil movent:

Domum, propinquos, patriam,

Deo vocante, deserunt.

Micante dum nos allicis,

O Christe, stellâ gratiæ;

Ne tarda cœlesti sinas

Obstare corda lumini.

Qui lumen est, sit laus Patri:

Qui se revelat Gentibus

Sit laus perennis Filio:

Par sit tibi laus, Spiritus.

Here is a rendition of the Latin original.

John Chandler, one of the most successful translators of hymns, was born at Witley in Surrey, June 16, 1806. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, B.A. 1827, M.A. 1830. Ordained deacon in 1831 and priest in 1832, he succeeded his father as the patron and vicar of Whitley, in 1837. His first volume, entitled The Hymns of the Primitive Church, now first Collected, Translated and Arranged, 1837, contained 100 hymns, for the most part ancient, with a few additions from the Paris Breviary of 1736, including What star is this.

What star is this, with beams so bright,

more beauteous than the noonday light?

It shines to herald forth the King,

and Gentiles to his crib to bring.

True spake the prophet from afar

who told the rise of Jacob’s star;

and eastern sages with amaze

upon the wondrous token gaze.

The guiding star above is bright;

within them shines a clearer light,

and leads them on with power benign

to seek the Giver of the sign.

Their love can brook no dull delay,

Though toil and danger block the way;

Home, kindred, fatherland, and all

They leave at their Creator’s call.

O Jesus, while the star of grace

impels us on to seek thy face,

let not our slothful hearts refuse

the guidance of thy light to use.

To God the Father, heavenly Light,

to Christ, revealed in earthly night,

to God the Holy Ghost we raise

our equal and unceasing praise.

Chandler’s translation follows the neo-Latin original closely.

Here is a chamber choir rendition; here is a congregational rendition.

A Third-Century Roman Catacomb

“Severa, may you live in God”

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Mount Calvary Music Notes December 18 (Advent IV)

December 16, 2016 in hymns, Mount Calvary Church, Music No Comments Tags: Advent music, Mount Calvary Church, Praetorius, Rachmaninoff

O Come, O Come Emmanuel This is based on the five antiphons for the Magnificat on the days before Christmas.

Jenny Lind and Otto Goldschmidt

A Tender Shoot was written by the German pianist, conductor and composer Otto Goldschmidt (1829–1907). He was from a German Reform Jewish family, and studied under Hans von Bulow, Felix Mendelssohn, Mortitz Hauptman, and Clara Schuman. He married the famous Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, nicknamed ‘The Swedish Nightingale’. He converted to the Church of England and settled in England. He founded The Bach Choir with whom he gave the first complete performance in Britain of Bach’s B minor Mass.

I Know a Rose Tree Springing. Goldschmidt’s A Tender Shoot and this hymn are both descended from the German Es ist ein Rose’ entsprungen, which in turn is based on Isaiah 11:1: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots” and on Isaiah 35:1: “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.”

The O Antiphon, O Radix Jesse, is also based on this text, and is used in O Come, O Come Emmanuel: “O come Thou rod of Jesse’s stem.”

O Root of Jesse most clearly reminds us on Jesus’ rootedness in Jewish history. He does not enter into the world isolated, detached from what has come before. Instead, God continues His relationship with mankind by coming into the smallest of nations. It is through this insignificant people that all peoples can receive God’s mercy and love. Even within this small nation, Jesus is born to the withered stump of a royal line; the Son of God is born into obscurity, of Mary, a Jewish maid from a small town.

The tune was first published in 1582 and was harmonized by Michael Praetorius (1571 – 1621), a German composer, organist, and music theorist. He was one of the most versatile composers of his age, being particularly significant in the development of musical forms based on Protestant hymns, many of which reflect an effort to improve the relationship between Protestants and Catholics. The tune is used in the 1979 Love Story and in the 2009 The Time Traveler’s Wife.

Bogoroditse Devo – Rejoice, O virgin mother of God. by Sergei Rachmaninov. This is from the All Night Vespers, which Rachmaninoff composed in 1915. It combines modern harmonic progressions with a variety of different textures. In the beginning, all the parts are singing the same rhythm (homophony). This musical technique makes the voices feel as one unit like a monastic chant.

The middle section of the piece that builds into the climax features the different choral parts singing different melodies (polyphony). Rachmaninoff creates a sense of motion as the alto lines meander while the other voices sing slowly rising sustained notes. The polyphony builds to a euphoric climax and then gently relaxes until all the voices come back together in the last measures moving with homophony into quiet reflection.

Michael Praetorius

Come Thou Redeemer of the Earth. J. M. Neale (1818-1866) translated the hymn Veni Redemptor gentium by St. Ambrose (340-397), in which he celebrates the Virgin Birth. Mary is the new Temple, for in her God Himself dwells in bodily form. In her womb the divine and human nature were eternally wedded, and from that bridal chamber Jesus goes forth like a giant, divine and human, to run his course. He comes forth from the Father, descends into death and Hell, and reascends to the throne of God. He saves us from death by giving us His own “deathless might.”

Praetorius also harmonized this tune, puer nobis nascitur. It probably predates him and may have folk origins.

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