Carols and Hymns for Christmas (13): ‘We three kings of Orient are’ (No 201)

The Adoration by the Magi ... an Ethiopian artist’s impression (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Each morning during this Season of Christmas, I have been reflecting on an appropriate hymn or carol. Although liturgically the Christmas Season continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation [2 February], for most people Christmas comes to an end today [6 January 2015] with the Feast of the Epiphany.

This morning, I am reflecting on the hymn ‘As with gladness men of old,’ sometimes known as ‘The Quest of the Magi,’ which is No 201 in the Irish Church Hymnal but is not included in the New English Hymnal.

This carol ranks alongside ‘O little town of Bethlehem’ by Bishop Phillips Brooks (ICH 174, NEH 32), among the best-known and popular American carols. But few people in Ireland realise that the author’s father was born in Dublin and was one of the bishops who played a pivotal role in the formation of the Anglican Communion.

‘We three kings of Orient are’ was written in 1859 by the Revd John Henry Hopkins (1820-1891). He was the Rector of Christ Church in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, when he wrote this carol for a Christmas pageant in the General Theological Seminary, New York, although it did not appear in print for another six years.

The Adoration of the Magi, by Peter Paul Rubens ... the Altarpiece in the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge

The Revd John Henry Hopkins, jr, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 28 October 1820, the son of John Henry Hopkins (1792-1868), an Irish-born Episcopal bishop who was the first Bishop of Vermont and later the eighth Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.

Bishop John Henry Hopkins was born in Dublin on 22 or 30 January 1792, the son of Thomas Hopkins and his wife Elizabeth nee Fitzakerly.

The Hopkins family emigrated from Dublin in 1800 to Philadelphia. There he began his education at home with his mother, and he was reading Shakespeare before the age of nine. Elizabeth Hopkins established a school for girls in Trenton, New Jersey, and eventually sent her son to a Baptist boy’s school in Bordentown, and then to Princeton University.

Because of his family’s straitened circumstances, Hopkins took a job at a counting-house, although his mother always wanted him to become a lawyer. At that time Hopkins was not particularly religious and his parents’ marriage was troubled. When his mother moved to Frederick, Maryland, to establish another school, he remained in Philadelphia with his father and friends.

Hopkins decided to become an ironmaster and worked for an ironmasters in New Jersey and in Philadelphia before moving west to manage the ironworks at Bassenheim in Butler County.

James O’Hara, an Irish immigrant who became the wealthiest man in Pittsburgh and Quartermaster-General, employed Hopkins to run the ironworks in the Ligonier Valley. There Hopkins got to know the Muller family, descended from a long line of German Lutheran ministers, and, after a religious awakening, began studying the Bible and other books, including works by Quakers and Swedenborgians.

He travelled back to Harmony, Pennsylvania, to marry Caspar Muller’s daughter Melusina and they settled at Hermitage Furnace. However, the iron business failed, and Hopkins returned to Pittsburgh where he taught drawing and painting while studying law with a local lawyer. He was called to the bar in April 1819 and set up a legal practice in Pittsburgh.

John and Melusina attended the Presbyterian Church, but he was also the organist and choirmaster at Trinity Church, the local Episcopal Church. When the Rector of Trinity Church moved to New Jersey and the next priest proved inadequate, Hopkins applied to be accepted for the priesthood, planning to merge his ministerial and legal vocations after ordination.

In 1823, he was licensed as a lay reader by William White, Bishop of Pennsylvania, was ordained deacon on 14 December that year, and was ordained priest on 12 May 1824. He was placed in charge of Trinity Church, Pittsburgh, and from 1824 to1830, he was Professor of Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres in the Western University of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pittsburgh). He read the works of the Church Fathers in the original Greek and Latin, and although in principle committed to high churchman liturgical practices he opposed the introduction of the Confessional to the Episcopal Church.

In 1827, he stepped back from the opportunity to become a coadjutor bishop to Bishop White, who was also the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. He realised his own vote would have decided the election in his favour, and lost by one vote. Later he would tell his son that had he voted for himself he would have wondered for the rest of his life whether his will or God’s had been done.

In 1831, he accepted the charge of Trinity Church, Boston, where his great vision was to establish a diocesan seminary, although support for this plan never fully materialised.

In 1832, Hopkins was elected the first Bishop of Vermont, and was consecrated in Saint Paul’s Church, New York, on 31 October 1832. At the same time he became the Rector of Saint Paul’s, Burlington. While he was Bishop of Vermont, the Diocese faced financial depressions, mass migration from Vermont to the west which was opening up, personal bankruptcy, and controversies. He took a great interest in education and made economic sacrifices for its promotion. After 1856, he devoted his whole time to the care of the diocese.

Hopkins is credited with introducing Gothic architecture to the Episcopal Church, and was the architect of Trinity Church, Rutland, where he was the Rector from 1860 to 1861. In 1861,he published a pamphlet, A Scriptural, Ecclesiastical, and Historical View of Slavery, seen as an attempt to justify slavery based on the New Testament, and giving a clear insight into the Episcopal Church’s involvement in slavery. He argued that slavery was not a sin per se but an institution that was objectionable and should be abrogated by agreement.

His lifelong dream of a diocesan seminary was realised in 1860 with the opening of the Vermont Episcopal Institute at Rock Point on Lake Champlain, outside Burlington. He also served for a time as the Chancellor of the University of Vermont.

In January 1865, he was elected the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. That October, he presided at the general convention in Philadelphia. Largely through his friendship with Bishop Stephen Elliott of Georgia, the Presiding Bishop of the breakaway Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America, the Northern and Southern branches of the Episcopal Church were reunited in 1866 after the end of the American Civil War. Subsequently, he presided in Christ Church, New Orleans at the consecration of Joseph Wilmer as Bishop of Louisiana, and in Louisville at the consecration of George David Cummins as Assistant Bishop of Kentucky.

His took a leading role in the first Lambeth Conference in 1867, bringing together all bishops in the Anglican Communion, and had suggested a similar assembly 18 years earlier in 1849.

He survived only two months after his return to Burlington in November 1867, and died of congestion of the lungs on 9 January 1868, at the age of 75. His funeral took place in Saint Paul’s Church, Burlington, and was buried in the cemetery at Rock Point. His monument was planned by his eldest son, the Revd John Henry Hopkins, the author of today’s carol.

John and Melusina Hopkins had 13 children. In 1866, most of their large family gathered at the family home at Rock Point to celebrate their Golden Wedding anniversary, and their daughter-in-law, Alice Leavenworth Hopkins, published a book to commemorate the event.

The University of Vermont and Harvard University hold many of the family papers. Most of his architectural legacy has been lost, including his Gothic Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Burlington, which was destroyed by fire in 1972. However, Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church, in Zelienople, Pennsylvania, which was built in 1826, still survives.

The Adoration of the Magi ... a window by Meyers of Munich in the south transept of Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The bishop’s son, the Revd John Henry Hopkins, jr, the author of this morning’s carol, was born on 28 October 1820, in Pittsburgh. He graduated from the University of Vermont with an AB in 1839, and received his master’s degree in 1845. He worked for a while as a journalist before entering the General Theological Seminary in New York. After ordination, he was the seminary’s first music teacher (1855-1857). He composed several hymns, and edited the Church Journal.

Hopkins wrote words and music for ‘We three kings of orient are’ as part of a Christmas pageant in 1859 when he was visiting his father’s home in Vermont, although it did not appear in print until his Carols, Hymns and Songs was published in New York in 1863.

While he was the rector of Christ Church in Williamsport, Pennsylvania (1876-1887), he delivered the eulogy at the funeral of President Ulysses S Grant in 1885. He died in Hudson, New York, on 14 August 1891 and is buried beside his father at Bishop’s House, Rock Point, Burlington, Vermont.

I first learned this hymn when I went carol singing with school-friends from Gormanston and Muckross as a teenager in Christmas 1968 and sang the part of the Third King who brings the gift of myrrh. This hymn is based on the story of the Visit of the Magi in Matthew 2: 1-12, which is the Gospel reading at the Epiphany Eucharist in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, this evening.

Hopkins organised the carol so that three male voices would each sing a single verse by himself, in order to correspond with the three kings.

The first and last stanzas of the carol are sung together by all three as “verses of praise,” while the intermediate stanzas are sung individually, with each king describing the gift he is bringing and revealing the sacramental nature of the gifts offered to the Christ Child. The refrain praises the beauty of the Star of Bethlehem.

The Adoration of the Magi ... a stained glass window in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This is the first Christmas carol from the US to win widespread popularity, and it was included in Bramley and Stainer’s Christmas Carols Old and New in London in 1871. In 1916, it was published in the hymnal for the Episcopal Church, which for the first time included a separate section for Christmas songs.

When it was included in the Oxford Book of Carols (1928), when it was described as “one of the most successful of modern composed carols.”

The Visit of the Magi seen on a panel on the triptych in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford/Lichfield Gazette)

We three kings of Orient are by John Henry Hopkins

1, The kings:
We three kings of Orient are;
bearing gifts we traverse afar
field and fountain, moor and mountain
following yonder star:

O star of wonder, star of night,
star with royal beauty bright;
westward leading, still proceeding
guide us to thy perfect light!

2, First king:
Born a king on Bethlehem plain,
gold I bring to crown him again –
king forever, ceasing never
over us all to reign

Refrain

3, Second king:
Frankincense to offer have I;
incense owns a Deity nigh;
prayer and praising, gladly raising
worship him, God Most High:

Refrain

4, Third king:
Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume
breathes of life of gathering gloom;
sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
sealed in the stone-cold tomb:

Refrain

5, The kings:
Glorious now, behold him arise,
King, and God, and Sacrifice!
Heav’n sings: alleluia, alle-
luia the earth replies:

Refrain

Series Concluded

Carols and Hymns for Christmas (12): ‘O come, all ye faithful’ (No 172)

Lichfield Cathedral in the snow … Frederick Oakeley wrote ‘O come, all ye faithful’ while he was a canon of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph © Lichfield Cathedral Photographers)

Patrick Comerford

The past week seems to have been an extended bank holiday for many people in Ireland. But most people are back to work today, and schools and colleges are reopening after the Christmas holiday.

However, the Christmas season continues through Advent until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation [2 February], and although the 12 Days of Christmas are drawing to close, there is still an opportunity to sing Christmas carols and hymns both today and tomorrow.

During the 12 Days of Christmas, as part of my own prayers and spiritual devotions, I have been reflecting each morning on an appropriate Christmas hymn or carol. This morning, I am thinking about one of the most traditional of all carols, ‘O come, all ye faithful’ (Adeste Fideles), which is No 172 in the Irish Church Hymnal and No 30 in the New English Hymnal.

It was difficult not to select this hymn, not only because of its lasting popularity, but because of its Irish connections and its connections with Lichfield.

Because this hymn first became known in Latin (Adeste Fideles), it was often presumed that its origins lay in a mediaeval Latin hymn. But the author of the original hymn or the date it was written remain unknown. It probably dates from the 18th century, and may be French or German in origin, dating only from around 1743.

Bishop Edward Darling and Donald Davison suggest the hymn – or at least the first four stanzas – and the tune may have been written by John Francis Wade (1711-1786), an English Roman Catholic exile living in Douay. Six manuscript copies of this version of the hymn survive – a seventh was stolen from Clongowes Wood College, Co Kildare, in the last century.

As early as 1797, the hymn was sung at the Chapel of the Portuguese Embassy, of which Vincent Novello was the organist. The tune became popular at that time, and was ascribed by Novello to John Reading, the organist of Winchester Cathedral (1675-1681), and of the College to 1692.

It has been translated many times into English and many other languages, with at least 16 translations in common usage. The most popular of these arrangements begin with Frederick Oakeley’s opening words, “O come, all ye faithful, joyfully triumphant,” or, alternatively, “O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant.”

Canon Frederick Oakeley, author of ‘O come, all ye faithful’

Frederick Oakeley (1802-1880) was an English Roman Catholic priest who is mainly remembered for his translation of this hymn into English.

He was born at the Abbey House, Shrewsbury, on 5 September 1802, the sixth son of Sir Charles Oakeley (1751-1826), of Holy Cross, Shrewsbury. Sir Charles was born in Forton, Staffordshire, near Newport, Shropshire, the son of the Revd William Oakeley (1717-1803), who was the Rector Forton, Staffordshire, and from 1782 the Vicar of Holy Cross, the abbey church in Shrewsbury, both in the Diocese of Lichfield.

Charles Oakeley was a colonial administrator in India, and returned to England for family reasons in February 1789. He was made a baronet the following year, and some months later returned to India as the Governor of Madras (1790-1794). When he returned to England, he lived at the Abbey House, his father’s vicarage in Shrewsbury, and it was there the hymn-writer Frederick was born in 1802.

The Bishop’s Palace, Lichfield, ... now a school and once the childhood home of Frederick Oakeley (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A childhood accident at the age of three in the Abbey House left Frederick disabled for many months, and for the rest of his life he was sickly and walked with a limp.

When Frederick was eight, his family moved to the Bishop’s Palace in the Cathedral Close, Lichfield, in 1810. Sir Charles was offered the Episcopal Palace at a nominal rent on condition that he would use his wealth to restore the building, which was then in a sorry state. At the time, the Bishop of Lichfield was living the life of a country squire at Eccleshall near Stafford.

The Oakeley family moved into the Palace following the death in 1809 of the Lichfield poet, Anna Seward, who had stayed on in the Palace after the death of her father, Canon Thomas Seward, in 1790.

Sir Charles attended Morning Prayer in the Cathedral each day. His son would remember him as pious, devout and humble, and the standard of music in the cathedral added to his pleasure in attending daily services there. Frederick also recalled how as boy of eight the cathedral organist had allowed him play the organ to accompany the psalms during the daily services.

Lichfield Grammar School … now the offices of Lichfield District Council (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Poor health often prevented Frederick from leaving home for school until the age of 14, when he had a late start at Lichfield Grammar School as a day scholar. This had been the school of Elias Ashmole (1617-1692), Joseph Addison (1672–1719), Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) and David Garrick (1717-1779). Addison was the son of the Very Revd Lancelot Addison, Dean of Lichfield Cathedral, and he grew up in the Cathedral Close, where his father lived in the Deanery. Two of Addison’s hymns are included in the Irish Church Hymnal and the New English Hymnal: ‘The Spacious firmament on high’ (ICH 35; NEH 267), and ‘When all thy mercies, O my God’ (ICH 374, NEH 472), which we sang as the Post-Communion Hymn in Zion Parish Church, Rathgar, last Sunday [4 January 2015].

A year after entering Lichfield Grammar School, Oakeley was sent from Lichfield on 19 September 1817 to Canon Charles Sumner for private tuition. Sumner was then the curate of the Parish of Highclere, near Newbury, Hampshire. Highclere Castle was the home of the Earl of Carnarvon, and has become known popularly in recent years as the location for Downton Abbey. Later, Sumner became Bishop of Llandaff (1826-1827) and Bishop of Winchester (1827-1873).

Frederick spent three years at Highclere, spent the holidays at home with his parents in Lichfield, and often felt homesick when he returned to the Sumner household in Highclere.

Frederick Oakeley (1801–1880) by an unknown artist, ca 1817 (Collection of Balliol College, Oxford)

He entered Christ Church, Oxford, in 1820 before reaching the age of 18. He gained a second class in literæ humaniores in 1824. After graduating BA he won the chancellor’s Latin and English prize essays in 1825 and 1827 respectively, and the Ellerton theological prize, also in 1827.

The monument to Sir Charles Oakeley in the North Transept of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

While Frederick was completing his studies in Oxford, his father, Sir Charles Oakeley, died at the Palace in Lichfield on 7 September 1826. He was buried in Forton, and a monument by Sir Francis Chantry was erected to his memory in the North Transept of Lichfield Cathedral.

Frederick proceeded MA in 1827, and was elected to a chaplain fellowship at Balliol College. With little fuss or formality he was ordained deacon by the Bishop of London in the Chapel Royal in Whitehall in 1828 and was ordained priest a week later in Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, by Charles Sumner, then Bishop of Llandaff and Dean of Saint Paul’s.

He remained a fellow of Balliol College until 1845, and was also tutor (1831-1837), Senior Dean (1834), catechetical and logic lecturer, and bursar (1837). In 1831, he was the select preacher, and in 1835 he was one of the public examiners to the university.

On 11 February 1832, he was installed as the Prebendary of Dasset Parva in Lichfield Cathedral on the nomination of Bishop Henry Ryder. He diligently returned to Lichfield Cathedral each year to preach on the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany to fulfil his duties as a canon in residence.

Henry Dudley Ryder (1777-1836) was the first Evangelical to become an Anglican bishop. He was successively Bishop of Gloucester (1815-1824) and Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry (1824-1836). His kneeling statue by Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey is in Lichfield Cathedral. John Henry Newman, in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua, speaks of the veneration in which he held Bishop Ryder.

Oakeley would remain a canon of Lichfield Cathedral until 1845. His brother, Sir Herbert Oakeley (1791-1845), who succeeded to the family title, was Archdeacon of Colchester from 1841. When the Bishopric of Gibraltar was founded in 1842, it was offered to Archdeacon Oakeley, who declined it. Their widowed mother, Helena, continued living in the Bishop’s Palace in Lichfield until her death in 1838.

While Frederick Oakeley was a fellow of Balliol College, he helped secure the election to a fellowship of his lifelong friend and former pupil Archibald Campbell Tait, later Archbishop of Canterbury. At Balliol, he also became a close friend of William George Ward, and they both joined the Tractarian party. Oakeley traced his dissatisfaction with the evangelicalism of his earlier years to the autumn of 1827 and a series of lectures on the ‘History and Structure of the Anglican Prayer Book’ by Charles Lloyd, Regius Professor of Divinity and newly-appointed Bishop of Oxford.

When Oakeley resigned his tutorship at Balliol, the Bishop of London, Charles Blomfield, appointed him Whitehall Preacher in 1837, but he retained his fellowship at Balliol. In the preface to his first volume of Whitehall Sermons (1837) he declared himself a member of the Oxford Movement.

In 1839, he became the incumbent of Margaret Chapel, the predecessor of All Saints’ Church, Margaret Street, London. In his six years at the Margaret Chapel, Oakeley introduced High Church liturgical practices and his friends there included Sir Alexander Beresford-Hope, who between 1850 and 1859 supervised the commissioning and building of All Saints’ Church to the designs of William Butterfield on behalf of the Ecclesiological Society (the Cambridge Camden Society); John Ponsonby MP, later 5th Earl of Bessborough and Lord-Lieutenant of Carlow (1838-1880); and the future Prime Minister William Gladstone.

Oakeley wrote his translation of ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ for his congregation in the Margaret Chapel in 1840, while he was still a canon of Lichfield Cathedral. Its inclusion in Francis H Murray’s Hymnal in 1852 would ensure Oakley a permanent place in the history of hymnology.

He stood by Ward at the time of his condemnation in 1845. In two pamphlets published separately at the time in London and Oxford, he defended Tract XC and asserted that he held, “as distinct from teaching, all Roman doctrine.”

For this behaviour he was cited before the Court of Arches by Bishop Blomfield. His license was withdrawn, and in July 1845 he was suspended from all clerical duty in the Province of Canterbury until he “retracted his errors.”

He moved to Newman’s community at Littlemore in Oxford, and resigned as a Prebendary of Lichfield Cathedral and from all his other appointments in the Church of England on 28 October 1845. The following day [29 October], he was received into the Roman Catholic Church in Saint Ignatius Chapel on the south side of Saint Clement’s, near Magdalen Bridge, then only Roman Catholic church in Oxford. On 31 October, he was confirmed at Birmingham by Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman.

The interior of Holy Cross Church, Lichfield … Frederick Oakeley celebrated his first Roman Catholic Mass here (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

From January 1846 to August 1848 he was a theological student in the seminary of the London district, Saint Edmund’s College, Ware. He was ordained by Cardinal Wiseman in 1847 and returned to Lichfield to celebrate his first Mass in Holy Cross Church, Upper John Street, with the 86-year-old scholarly Dr John Kirk, who had been Parish Priest of Lichfield when Oakeley was still a child in the Cathedral Close.

In the summer of 1848 he joined the staff of Saint George’s, Southwark. On 22 January 1850, he took charge of Saint John’s, Islington. In 1852, when the new Roman Catholic hierarchy was formed in England and Wales with Wiseman as cardinal-archbishop, Oakeley was appointed a canon of Westminster Cathedral.

For many years, he worked among the poor in his diocese. But he maintained contact with Bishop Sumner, and when Jennie Sumner died in 1849 Frederick sent his sympathies to the bishop.

In the last few years of his life, he remembered with fondness his childhood days in Lichfield. In a letter to George Henry Sumner, then Archdeacon of Winchester, he wrote on 5 May 1875: “It is very pleasant to recall a period which I have always regarded as one of the happiest in my early life.”

He died in Islington on 29 January 1880, and was buried in Saint Mary’s Roman Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green.

Memories and legacies

Henrietta Mott, wife of John Mott (1787–1869), Mayor of Lichfield in 1850, and sister of Frederick Oakeley

One sister, Henrietta, married John Mott (1787–1869) of No 20, The Close, Lichfield, who was Deputy Diocesan Registrar of Lichfield and the Mayor of Lichfield in 1850. His youngest sister, Amelia, married Chappel Wodehouse, only son of the Very Revd Chappel Wodehouse (1749-1833), who was Dean of Lichfield Cathedral when Frederick was installed a canon. His nephew, Sir Herbert Stanley Oakeley (1830-1903), was Music Critic of the Manchester Guardian (1858-1868), Reid Professor of Music at Edinburgh University (1865-1891), Organist at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church, Edinburgh, and Composer of Music to Queen Victoria in Scotland. He is included among the top 15 Victorian composers of hymn tunes by Ian Bradley (Abide with Me, London: SCM Press, 1997). Two of his settings for hymns are included in the Irish Church Hymnal: Abends for John Keble’s ‘Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear’ (No 72) and Dominica for William Watkins Reid’s ‘Help us, O Lord, to learn’ (No 382).

John Mott (1787–1869) ... Mayor of Lichfield in 1850 and brother-in-law of Frederick Oakeley

Frederick Oakeley was short-sighted, small of stature and lame, and it is said he exercised a wide influence through his personality, his writings, and the charm of his conversation.

He published many hymns and poems. His poetry collections include Lyra Liturgica: Reflections in Verse for Holy Days and Seasons (London, 1865). His other works include: Aristotelian and Platonic Ethics (Oxford, 1837); Whitehall Sermons (Oxford, 1837-1839); The Subject of Tract XC examined (London, 1841); Homilies (London, 1842); Life of St Augustine (Toovey, 1844); Practical Sermons (London, 1848); The Catholic Florist (London, 1851); The Church of the Bible (London, 1857); Historical Notes on the Tractarian Movement (London, 1865); and The Priest on the Mission (London, 1871).

He also translated JM Horst’s Paradise of the Christian Soul (London, 1850). He was a constant contributor to the Dublin Review and The Month.

Richard Church, Dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London (1870-1891) and an early historian of the Oxford Movement, said Oakeley “was, perhaps, the first to realise the capacities of the Anglican ritual for impressive devotional use, and his services, is spite of the disadvantages of the time, and also of his chapel, are still remembered by some as having realised for them in a way never since surpassed, the secrets and consolations of the worship of the Church.”

A sign on Elgar Close, leading to Oakley Close (Photograph: Mary Brookes, Lichfield, 2014)

Sadly, Frederick Oakeley has no monument in Lichfield apart from a misspelled street name at Oakley Close.

Anthony Poulton-Smith in his South Staffordshire Street Names (Amberley, 2009), suggests Oakley Close in Lichfield is named after Sir Charles Oakley (sic). But he gets a number of Lichfield names quite wrong: for example he suggests Reeve Lane near the cathedral is called after a Saxon reeve who ran an estate for a lord of a manor, when it is named after the late Stretton Reeve, who was Bishop of Lichfield (1953-1974).

Oakley Close was named after Frederick Oakeley but was misspelled in the original order by Lichfield District Council in 1977. Other street names in the area commemorate celebrated composers and musicians, including Purcell, Elgar, Handel, Verdi, Gilbert and Sullivan. Elias Ashmole, Samuel Johnson and David Garrick are also remembered in street named and placenames in Lichfield, though not Joseph Addison, .

It is regrettable that in the cathedral city Oakeley knew as home, there is no public monument to one of the great and most popular English hymn-writers. Perhaps correcting the spelling of Oakley Close might begin to rectify this.

Translating the hymn:

Oakeley’s original translation of the hymn in 1841, began: “Ye faithful, approach ye.” But in 1845 he rewrote the beginning of the hymn: “O come, all ye faithful, Joyfully triumphant.”

The first stanza invites us to Bethlehem to worship the Christ Child; Stanza 2 is an affirmation of faith in the Incarnation as expressed in the Nicene Creed; Stanza 3 calls on the angels to sing their praises of Glory; and Stanza 4 is a response of greeting to the new-born Redeemer.

Three further stanzas were added to the Latin original while he was in exile in England in 1793 by the Abbé Étienne Jean François de Borderies (1764-1832), later Bishop of Versailles, and an eighth stanza, to include the Visit of the Magi at Epiphany, was added anonymously around 1850.

Oakeley’s translation of the first four stanzas reads:

Adeste fideles.

Oh Come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant,
Oh come ye, oh come ye to Bethlehem;
Come and behold him
Born the King of angels;
Oh come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

God of God,
Light of Light,
Lo! he abhors not the Virgin’s womb;
Very God,
Begotten, not created;
Oh come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

Sing, choirs of angels.
Sing in exultation.
Sing, all ye citizens of heaven above:
‘Glory to God
In the highest’;
Oh come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

Yea, Lord, we greet thee,
Born this happy morning;
Jesus, to thee be glory given,
Word of the Father,
Now in flesh appearing:
Oh come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

The later stanzas were translated into English by William Thomas Brooke (1848-1917), a former Baptist who joined the Church of England in 1867.

The version in the Irish Church Hymnal includes parallel texts of the original Latin version of the first two stanzas to facilitate its use in ecumenical contexts.

The tune Adeste Fideles was originally thought to be a composition by Wade, but early arrangements were provided by Thomas Greatorex and Samuel Webbe, and because of Webbe’s use of the tune in the Chapel of the Portuguese Embassy in London it was often known as the ‘Portuguese Hymn.’

O come, all ye faithful, translated by Frederick Oakeley (ICH, 172)

1, O come, all ye faithful,
joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem;
come, and behold him,
born the King of angels:

O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him,
Christ the Lord.

2, God of God,
Light of Light,
Lo! he abhors not the Virgin’s womb;
very God,
begotten, not created:
Refrain

*3, See how the shepherds,
summoned to his cradle,
leaving their flocks, draw nigh with lowly fear;
we too will thither
bend our joyful footsteps:
Refrain

*4, Lo! star-led chieftains,
Magi, Christ adoring,
offer him incense gold and myrrh;
we to the Christ-child
bring our hearts oblations:
Refrain

*5, Child, for us sinners
poor and in the manger,
fain we embrace thee, with awe and love;
who would not love thee,
loving us so dearly?
Refrain

6, Sing, choirs of angels,
sing in exultation,
sing, all ye citizens of heaven above;
glory to God
in the highest;
Refrain

(On Christmas Day only)

7a, Yea, Lord, we greet thee,
born this happy morning;
Jesus, to thee be glory given;
Word of the Father,
now in flesh appearing:
Refrain

(From Christmas to Epiphany)

7b, Yea, Lord, we bless thee,
born for our salvation,
Jesu, to thee be glory given;
Word of the Father,
now in flesh appearing:
Refrain

Additional reading:

Edward Darling and Donald Davison, Companion to Church Hymnal (Dublin: Columba Press, 2005).
Peter Galloway, A Passionate Humility: Frederick Oakeley and the Oxford Movement (Leominster: Gracewing, 1999).
Roger Mott, The Motts of Lichfield: 1756-1869 (Penn Press, 2011).

Additional acknowledgements:

Gareth Thomas, Geographic Information Manager, Lichfield District Council; Mary Brookes, Lichfield; the Revd Canon Professor John Bartlett.

Tomorrow: ‘We three kings of Orient are.’

‘O come, all ye faithful’ … Christmas in Lichfield Cathedral (Images © Lichfield Cathedral Photographers)

Updated: 1 July 2015 (Photograph of Oakeley monument in Lichfield Cathedral)

An Epiphany sermon on the 50th anniversary of the death of TS Eliot

The Visit of the Magi seen on a panel on the triptych in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford/Lichfield Gazette)

Patrick Comerford,

The Second Sunday of Christmas,

4 January 2015,

Zion Church, Rathgar, Dublin:

10.30 a.m., The Eucharist

Readings:

Jeremiah 31: 7-14; Psalm 147: 12-20; Ephesians 1: 3-14; John 1: [1-9], 10-18.

May I speak to you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

The Christmas festivities are almost over, the New Year’s celebrations are already past. Some of us may have returned to work, or are going back to school or college tomorrow. Some of us, perhaps, have already forgotten those New Year’s resolutions made only a few days ago. We are a people with great resolve but little perseverance.

But it is good at the beginning of a new year, on our first Sunday back in Church, to begin at the beginning.

And so, on this Sunday, the Second Sunday of Christmas, the cycle of readings in the Revised Common Lectionary always provides for these same readings.

The prophet Jeremiah has that wonderful promise of new beginnings, of a new heaven and a new earth, that is a cheering beginning to the new year.

In the bleak midwinter, the Psalmist reminds us that God “gives snow like wool and scatters the hoarfrost like ashes.”

Saint Paul, in turn reminds us of our first promise in Christ and our final hopes in God’s promises.

And then in the Gospel, we re-read what is for many one of the climatic readings on Christmas day: the prologue to Saint John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word … And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”

This Gospel reading comes to mind when I read TS Eliot’s poem ‘East Coker’ – the second of his poems in the Four Quartets, which opens:

In my beginning is my end …

and which ends:

… In my end is my beginning.

For Christmas is meaningless as a beginning unless it has its end, and the end must have a beginning.

The Adoration by the Magi ... an Ethiopian artist’s impression (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Over the next few weeks, the Epiphany readings remind us that the Christmas story is not just about the Crib and the Christmas, nativity stories, but about God coming to dwell among us, and pointing from the beginning towards the promise and revelation to all nations, to all people.

The three principle Epiphany themes are:

• The Adoration of the Magi (Tuesday’s reading on the Feast of the Epiphany, 6 January, Matthew 2: 1-12);
• The Baptism of Christ by Saint the Baptist in the River Jordan (Epiphany 1, next Sunday’s reading, 11 January, Mark 1: 1-11);
• The miracle at the wedding in Cana (Epiphany 3, 25 January, John 2: 1-11).

But, while we are moving from Christmas to Epiphany, which begins on 6 January and ends at the Feast of the Presentation on Candlemas on 2 February, the Epiphany season is truly a continuation of the Christmas season, the liturgical colour remains white, and together Christmas and Epiphany form one full, continuous season of 40 days.

The visit of the Magi is a symbolic presentation of God’s revelation in Christ to the Gentiles. It inspired one of the great poems by TS Eliot, who died on this day 50 years ago, 4 January 1965.

This poem was written after Eliot’s conversion to Christianity and his confirmation in the Church of England in 1927, but was not published until 1930 in his Ariel Poems.

In some ways, this poem recalls ‘Dover Beach’ by Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), but also shows some influences of the earlier ‘The Magi’ by WB Yeats.

However, unlike Yeats, Eliot’s ‘The Journey of the Magi’ is a truly Anglican poem, for the first five lines are based on the 1622 ‘Nativity Sermon’ of Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), Bishop of Winchester, who first summarised Anglicanism in the dictum “One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments, three creeds, four general councils, five centuries and the series of Fathers in that period … determine the boundary of our faith.”

Eliot’s poem recalls the journey of Magi to Bethlehem from the point of view of one of the Wise Men. He chooses an elderly speaker who is world-weary, reflective and sad. This narrator is a witness to momentous historical change who seeks to rise above that historical moment, a man who, despite material wealth and prestige, has lost his spiritual bearings. The speaker is agitated, his revelations are accidental and born out of his emotional distress, and he speaks to us, the readers, directly.

Instead of celebrating the wonders of the journey, the wise man recalls a journey that was painful and tedious. He remembers how a tempting, distracting voice was constantly whispering in their ears on that journey that “this was all folly.”

The poem picks up Eliot’s persistent theme of alienation and a feeling of powerlessness in a world that has changed.

Instead of celebrating the wonders of his journey, the surviving magus complains about a journey that was painful, tedious, and seemingly pointless. He says that a voice was always whispering in their ears as they went that “this was all folly.” The magus may have been unimpressed by the new-born infant, but he realises that the incarnation changes everything, and he asks:

... were we led all that way for
Birth or Death?

The birth of Christ was the death of the old religions. Now in his old age, he realises that with this birth his world had died, and he has little left to do but to wait for his own death.

On their journey, the Magi see “three trees against a low sky” – a vision of the future Crucifixion on Calvary. The Incarnation points to the Cross. Without Good Friday and Easter Day, Christmas has no significance for us at all. The birth of Christ leads to the death of old superstitions and old orders.

The “running stream” may refer to the Baptism of Christ by John the Baptist in the River Jordan, which is also an Epiphany moment.

The “six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver” recall both the betrayal of Christ by Judas for 30 pieces of silver, and the dice thrown for Christ’s garment at the foot of the cross.

The empty wineskins recall the miracle at the Wedding in Cana, another Epiphany theme.

The early morning descent into a “temperate valley” evokes three significant Christian events: the nativity and the dawning of a new era; the empty tomb of Easter; and the Second Coming and the return of Christ from the East, dispelling darkness as the Sun of Righteousness.

In his old age, as he recalls these events, has the now-elderly Wise Man little left to do apart from waiting for his own death?

He is a witness of historical change, does he manage to rise above his historical moment?

With his material wealth and prestige, has he lost his spiritual bearings?

Or has he had spiritual insights before his time?

And so, on the fiftieth anniversary of the death of TS Eliot, the greatest Anglican poet of the 20th century, let me go no further and simply read that poem, which links Christmas, Epiphany and the Easter story, which links beginnings and ends, ends and beginnings, which makes sense and meaning of the Christmas story at the beginning of this New Year:

The Adoration of the Magi ... a stained glass window in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Journey of the Magi, by TS Eliot

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Collect:

Almighty God,
in the birth of your Son
you have poured on us the new light of your incarnate Word,
and shown us the fullness of your love:
Help us to walk in this light and dwell in his love
that we may know the fullness of his joy;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

Light eternal,
you have nourished us in the mystery
of the body and blood of your Son:
By your grace keep us ever faithful to your word,
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This sermon was preached at the Parish Eucharist in Zion Parish Church, Rathgar, Dublin, on Sunday 4 January 2015.

‘A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year’ … an Epiphany sermon

The poet TS Eliot in a portrait by Sir Gerald Kelly … he died 50 years ago on 4 January 1965

Patrick Comerford,

The Second Sunday of Christmas,

4 January 2015,

Zion Church, Rathgar, Dublin:

9 a.m., The Eucharist

Readings:

Jeremiah 31: 7-14; Psalm 147: 12-20; Ephesians 1: 3-14; John 1: [1-9], 10-18.

May I speak to you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Four days into January, and I wonder how many of us have already forgotten our New Year’s resolutions?

Sometimes, we begin as we mean to go, but our intentions are always better than our capacity for endurance.

Yet our Scripture readings this morning make that connection between beginnings and endings.

Christ comes to dwell among us, and Saint John reminds us that this is a new creation. This is a new beginning. We re-read what is for many one of the climatic readings on Christmas day: the prologue to Saint John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word … And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”

This Gospel reading comes to mind when I read TS Eliot’s poem ‘East Coker’ – the second of his poems in the Four Quartets, which opens:

In my beginning is my end …

and which ends:

… In my end is my beginning.

Christmas always holds the offer of new beginnings, new creation, the promise of new opportunities to be caught up in the love of God.

The Epiphany readings remind us that the Christmas story is not just about the Crib and the Christmas, nativity stories, but about God coming to dwell among us, and pointing from the beginning towards the promise and revelation to all nations, to all people.

The three principle Epiphany themes are:

• The Adoration of the Magi (Tuesday’s reading on the Feast of the Epiphany, 6 January, Matthew 2: 1-12);
• The Baptism of Christ by Saint the Baptist in the River Jordan (Epiphany 1, next Sunday’s reading, 11 January, Mark 1: 1-11);
• The miracle at the wedding in Cana (Epiphany 3, 25 January, John 2: 1-11).

The visit of the Magi is a symbolic presentation of God’s revelation in Christ to the Gentiles. It inspired one of the great poems by TS Eliot, who died on this day 50 years ago, 4 January 1965.

This poem was written after Eliot’s conversion to Christianity and his confirmation in the Church of England in 1927, but was not published until 1930 in his Ariel Poems.

So, rather than continuing with this sermon so early in the morning, I think it might be a good idea, on the 50th anniversary of the death of TS Eliot, and two days before the Feast of the Epiphany, to read that poem:

The Adoration of the Magi, by Peter Paul Rubens ... the Altarpiece in the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge

The Journey of the Magi, by TS Eliot

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

The Visit of the Magi seen on a panel on the triptych in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford/Lichfield Gazette)

Collect:

Almighty God,
in the birth of your Son
you have poured on us the new light of your incarnate Word,
and shown us the fullness of your love:
Help us to walk in this light and dwell in his love
that we may know the fullness of his joy;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

Light eternal,
you have nourished us in the mystery
of the body and blood of your Son:
By your grace keep us ever faithful to your word,
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This sermon was preached at the early Sunday morning Eucharist in Zion Parish Church, Rathgar, Dublin, on 4 January 2015.

Carols and Hymns for Christmas (11): ‘As with gladness men of old’ (No 189)

‘Star of Bethlehem’ by Edward Burn-Jones

Patrick Comerford

Today is the Second Sunday After Christmas, and this morning I am celebrating the Eucharist and preaching in Zion Church, Rathgar, where my friend, the Revd Stephen Farrell, is the Rector.

Although it is another two days to the Feast of Epiphany [6 January], many parishes are likely to opt for the Epiphany readings this morning. However, the Christmas season continues. Each morning during this Season of Christmas, I am reflecting on an appropriate hymn or carol. This morning [4 January 2015], I have chosen ‘As with gladness men of old.’

The words and lyrics of this Christmas Carol were written by William Chatterton Dix (1837-1898) on the Feast of the Epiphany, 6 January 1858, when he was only 20 and while he was sick in bed. Dix is also the author of another popular Christmas hymn, ‘What Child Is This,’ which provided my reflection for Friday morning [2 January 2015].

Dix was born in Bristol, the son of a local medical doctor. His spent most of his working life in maritime insurance, but he had a life-long passion for writing lyrics for hymns and carols. He died in Cheddar, Somerset, in 1898.

This morning’s hymn was first published in AH Ward’s Hymns for Public Worship and Private Devotion (1860). The following year it was published in Hymns Ancient and Modern, for Use in the Services of the Church (1861), and Dix included it in his own book, Hymns of Love and Joy (1867).

This morning’s hymn was brought to prominence by Sir Roundell Palmer (Lord Selborne) in his paper on ‘English Church Hymnody,’ at the Church Congress at York in 1866. Since then, it has been included in numerous hymnals throughout the English-speaking world. It is included in both the Irish Church Hymnal (No 189), and the New English Hymnal (No 45).

The carol is inspired by the Epiphany gospel, Matthew 1: 1-11. Taking Matthew 1: 1-11 as his theme for stanzas 1-3, Dix likens the journey of the wise men who came to worship the Christ Child to our own Christian pilgrimage. The pattern of these stanzas is “as they … so may we.”

Stanzas 4 and 5 are a prayer that our journey on the “narrow way” may bring us finally to glory where Christ is the light (see Revelation 21: 23) and where we may perfectly sing his praise (see Revelation 22: 5).

Further examination of the carol also reveals built-in references to Psalm 43: 3, Isaiah 60: 6, II Samuel 24: 24, and Matthew 7: 14.

The tune is known as “Dix,” and was adapted by William Henry Monk from the original Treuer Heiland, Wir Sind Heir by theGerman composer Conrad Kocher (1786-1872), in Stimmen aus dem Reiche Gottes (1838).

Kocher was born in Ditzingen, Wurttemberg, in 1786, and was trained as a teacher. He moved to St Petersburg, Russia, to work as a tutor at the age of 17, but his love for the music of Haydn and Mozart impelled him to a career in music. The prestigious Cotta music firm published some of his early compositions and sent him to study music in Italy, where he came under the influence of Palestrina's music.

He returned to Germany in 1811, and settled in Stuttgart. There in 1821 he established the School of Sacred Music, which popularised four-part singing in the churches of that region.

Kocher was organist and choir director at the Striftsckirche in Stuttgart from 1827 to 1865. He wrote a treatise on church music, Die Tonkunst in der Kirche (1823), collected a large number of chorales in Zions Harfe (1855), and composed an oratorio, two operas, and some sonatas. He died in Stuttgart in 1872.

William H. Monk created the current form of ‘Dix’ by revising and shortening Kocher’s chorale melody. Monk’s tune was published with Dix’s text in the 1861 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern, of which Monk was the music editor. Dix regretted the use of this tune for his text, but the combination has proven a good match.

Stanza 5 adds a descant by Sir Sydney H. Nicholson (1875-1947). He studied at New College, Oxford, the Royal College of Music in London, and in Frankfurt, before going on to become the organist at several famous prominent churches and cathedrals, including Westminster Abbey (1919-1928). In 1927, Nicholson founded the School of English Church Music at Chislehurst, which became the Royal School of Church Music in 1945.

As with gladness, men of old, by William Chatterton Dix

As with gladness, men of old
did the guiding star behold;
as with joy they hailed its light,
leading onward, beaming bright;
so, most glorious Lord, may we
evermore be led to thee.

As with joyful steps they sped,
Saviour, to thy lowly bed;
there to bend the knee before
thee whom heaven and earth adore;
so may we with willing feet
ever seek thy mercy-seat.

As they offered gifts most rare
at that cradle rude and bare;
so may we with holy joy,
pure and free from sin’s alloy,
all our costliest treasures bring,
Christ, to thee, our heavenly King.

Holy Jesus, every day
keep us in the narrow way;
and, when earthly things are past,
bring our ransomed souls at last
where they need no star to guide,
where no clouds thy glory hide.

In the heavenly country bright,
need they no created light;
thou its light, its joy, its crown,
thou its sun, which goes not down:
there for ever may we sing
alleluias to our King.

Tomorrow: ‘O come, all ye faithful.’

Carols and Hymns for Christmas (10): ‘As Joseph was a-walking’ (No 148)

Saint Joseph leading the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child, followed by Saint James, on the flight into Egypt … an Ethiopian artists’s impression (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

Saint Joseph is one of the truly enigmatic characters in the Gospel stories. He appears in both Saint Matthew’s Gospel and Saint Luke’s Gospel, but he is in neither Saint Mark’s nor Saint John’s Gospel. And after Mary and Joseph return from Jerusalem to Nazareth with the Child Jesus, Joseph disappears from the stage again.

The Gospels are silent when it comes to the details of Joseph’s life. We know not where or when he was born nor do we know where or when he died. Was he married before? Was he an older man? Was he the father of the brothers of Jesus – James, Joses, Judas and Simon – from an earlier marriage? Did he live on into old age? We do not know.

We do not even know what he worked at: Joseph was a τεκτων (tekton), which is traditionally translated as carpenter. But the Greek word applies too to an artisan with wood in general, or to an artisan in iron or stone, a builder or even an architect.

And if the Gospels are silent about the intimate details of Joseph, then Joseph too is silent in the Gospels. He has the worst part to play in the school nativity play … a walk-on part, but no lines to say. Joseph has no speaking parts at all. All we know is he lived in Nazareth in Galilee before the birth of Christ (Luke 2: 4).

Joseph does not speak. Instead, Joseph dreams and Joseph listens. He listens to the angel who tells him not to divorce Mary (Matthew 1: 20-21), and does what the angel of the Lord tells him (Matthew 1: 24). When the law commands it, Joseph takes his pregnant wife to Bethlehem (Luke 2: 4), and there the child is born.

After the birth of Christ, Joseph listens to an angel in another dream – and, silently, he does as he is told, and without mumbling or grumbling gets up and takes the Mother and Child into Egypt (Matthew 2: 13-14).

When Herod dies, Joseph is told by the angel in yet another dream to return with Mary and Jesus from Egypt (Matthew 2: 19-21).

Then Joseph learns in a fourth dream that Herod Archelaus is in power in Judea, and he is warned in a dream to move to Galilee. And so, Joseph takes the mother and child to Nazareth and they settle there (Matthew 2: 21-23).

The last time Joseph appears is when the family visits the Temple in Jerusalem at Passover, when Jesus is about 12 (Luke 2: 41-52). When the Gospel writers resume telling the story of Christ’s life, after the hidden years, the Virgin Mary is present at some events, but there is no mention ever again of Joseph.

Did he hear Jesus preach in the synagogue?

Did he see him heal?

Was he too at the Wedding at Cana?

We do not know.

Like his namesake Joseph in the Old Testament, Joseph in the Gospels is a dreamer. Most dreamers are good on ideas but weak on delivery, dreamers but not doers. Saint Joseph, on the other hand, is both a dreamer and a doer.

What if Joseph had rolled over and had another 40 winks after each of those dreams?

What if Joseph said No at each turn?

At different times, we have all pondered Mary’s potential “No” at each turn. But, what if Joseph said No, had divorced Mary, left Jesus to be brought up by a single mother?

What if Joseph decided to stay at home and Jesus was born in Nazareth?

What if Joseph had ignored the warning and stayed on in Bethlehem, so that the new-born child was found by Herod’s troops hunting down all the new-born children?

What if Mary and Jesus moved back from Egypt to Bethlehem or Jerusalem, and became victims of the murderous schemes of Herod Archelaus?

What if Joseph and Mary had failed to find the teenage Jesus when he got lost in the Temple?

We often think that dreamers need to take their heads out of the clouds and set their feet back firmly on the ground. We often think that those who have little to say have little to contribute. Joseph proves how wrong we can be. Joseph is a dreamer and Joseph is a doer. Joseph plays a key role in the great story of salvation. Does it matter what he does afterwards? No. It just matters that he did what he was asked to do. We leave the rest to Jesus.

Is life just a bowl of cherries? ... ‘The Cherry Tree Carol’ is a traditional English carol dating back to the early 15th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Each morning during this Season of Christmas, I am reflecting on an appropriate hymn or carol. This morning [3 January 2015], I have chosen ‘As Joseph was a-walking.’ This is a beautifully serene and atmospheric setting of traditional words on the prophecy of Christ’s birth as told to Joseph by the angel, and is traditionally known in England as ‘The Cherry Tree Carol.’

This carol is No 148 in the Irish Church Hymnal. This old English carol, which dates back to the Coventry Mystery Plays. It was performed in Coventry ca 1400 during the Feast of Corpus Christi, and was still being sung in many parts of England more than 450 years later.

A version of Mystery VIII was published in 1823 by William Hone in Ancient Mysteries Described, and a more complete version was published in 1841 by James Orchard Halliwell in Ludus Coventriæ. A Collection of Mysteries, Formerly Represented at Coventry on the Feast of Corpus Christi, where Halliwell dates the carol to 1468.

Later, William Studwell pointed out that there is not a single “Cherry Tree Carol” but rather three separate folk carols that were later merged. Even among these three carols there is considerable variation in the lyrics. The editors of The New Oxford Book of Carols say there may be at least eight texts.

Some researchers point to the widespread use in folklore of the gift of a cherry, or similar fruit carrying its own seed, as a divine authentication of human fertility. There is also a link between Eve eating the fruit in the Garden of Eden before the Fall, and Mary eating cherries and whose son would erase the transgression. Some versions have Mary and Joseph walking through a garden, rather than an orchard, reinforcing the motif of the Garden of Eden.

Chapter 20 of the apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew tells a story that during their flight into Egypt, Mary sits beneath a palm tree and desires its dates, but is unable to reach them. Joseph is unable to climb the tree, but when Jesus intervenes, the tree bows down to give Mary the fruit.

Most versions of this carol follow a similar pattern: when Saint Joseph refuses to retrieve the fruit of the tree for the Virgin Mary, Christ intervenes from the womb and the tree bows down to deliver the fruit to the Virgin Mary.

However, in one version of ‘Joseph Was An Old Man,’ Saint Joseph commands the tree to bow to the Virgin Mary – and it does. In ‘Joseph Were A Young Man,’ it is Christ himself who issues the command.

As Joseph was a-walking

As Joseph was a-walking,
he heard an angel sing,
‘This night there shall be the birth time
of Christ our heavenly King.

‘He neither shall be born
in housen nor in hall,
nor in the place of Paradise,
but in an ox’s stall.

‘He neither shall be clothed
in purple nor in pall,
but in the pure white linen
as usen babies all.

‘He neither shall be rocked
in silver nor in gold;
but in a wooden cradle
that rocket on the mould.”

As Joseph was a-walking,
there did an angel sing,
and Mary’s child at midnight
was born to be our King.

Then be ye glad, good people,
this night of all the year,
and lift your hearts in joyfulness,
his star it shineth clear.

Another version was versified by Charles Wesley, the author of The Water Babies, who has Amyas sing this carol in Westward Ho!:

As Joseph was a-Walking by Charles Kingsley (1899)

As Joseph was a-walking
He heard an Angel sing –
‘This night shall be the birth night
Of Christ, our Heavenly King.

“His birthbed shall be neither
In housen nor in hall,
Nor in the place of paradise,
But in the oxen’s stall.

“He neither shall be rocked,
In silver nor in gold,
But in the wooden manger
That lieth on the mould.

“He neither shall be washen
With white wine nor with red,
But with the fair spring water
That on you shall be shed.

“He neither shall be clothed
In purple nor in pall,
But in the fair white linen
That usen babies all.”

As Joseph was a-walking
Thus did the angel sing,
And Mary’s Son at midnight
Was born to be our King.

Then be you glad, good people,
At this time of the year;
And light you up your candles,
For His star it shineth clear.

This version was set to music by Lydia Avery Coonley Ward (1845-1924), who wrote tunes for many carols, including ‘Why do bells for Christmas ring?’

Tomorrow: ‘As with gladness men of old’

Carols and Hymns for Christmas (9): ‘What child is this, who, laid to rest’ (No 202)

‘What child is this, who, laid to rest, / on Mary’s lap is sleeping’ … the Holy Family by Giovanni Battista Pittoni, the Altar Piece in the Chapel of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

As part of my spiritual reflections for this Christmas season, I am thinking about an appropriate carol or hymn each morning. This morning (2 January 2015), I am reflecting on ‘What child is this, who, laid to rest,’ written in 1865 by William Chatterton Dix (1837-1898).

This hymn appears in both the Irish Church Hymnal (No 202) and the New English Hymnal (No 40), and its popularity has been helped by its setting to the traditional English folk melody, ‘Greensleeves,’ for which the hymn was written.

William Chatterton Dix was born in Bristol on 14 June 1837, the son of John Dix, a surgeon and writer. His middle name came from the poet Thomas Chatterton, of whom his father was the biographer.

Dix was educated at Bristol Grammar School and spent most of his working life in Glasgow, where he was the manager of an insurance company. But at the age of 29 he was struck with a near fatal illness and spent many months confined to his bed. During that time he was severely depressed, but wrote several hymn and carols, including ‘To you, O Lord, our hearts we raise,’ and ‘Alleluia! Sing to Jesus,’ and this morning’s hymn, ‘What child is this?’ Another Epiphany hymn, ‘As with Gladness Men of Old,’ is my choice for reflection next Sunday morning.

Throughout his life, Dix was a pious and devout Anglican who was deeply influenced by the Tractarian movement. His hymns are found in many collections, including Hymns Ancient and Modern, Saint Raphael’s Hymnbook (1861), Lyra Eucharidica (1863), Lyra Messianica (1864), Lyra Mystica (1865), The People’s Hymns (1867), The Hymnary (1872), and Church Hymns (1871).

Many of his contributions are renderings in metrical form of translation from the Greek by the Revd Dr Richard Frederick Littledale (1833–1890) in his Offices … of the Holy Eastern Church (1863). Littledale, who was born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College Dublin, was a leading writer in the Oxford Movement, and worked closely with the hymn-writer John Mason Neale.

Dix died at Cheddar in Somerset on 9 September 1898 and was buried at the local parish church.

This hymn is generally linked with the tune of the traditional English folk song, Greensleeves. There is a persistent myth that Greensleeves was composed by Henry VIII for his lover and future queen consort Anne Boleyn. She allegedly rejected the king’s attempts to seduce her and this rejection may be referred to in the song when the writer’s love “cast me off discourteously.”

However, the piece is based on an Italian style of composition that did not reach England until after Henry’s death, making it more likely to be Elizabethan in origin.

From as early as 1642, the tune was associated with Christmas and New Year texts. By the 19th century, almost every printed collection of Christmas carols included some version of words and music together, most of them ending with the refrain "On Christmas Day in the morning." One of the most popular of these is this morning’s hymn,‘What child is this?’

Ralph Vaughan Williams composed his Fantasia on Greensleeves in 1934, basing it on the ‘Greensleeves’ melody. Initially it was used in the third act of his opera Sir John in Love, inspired by Shakespeare’s ‘Merry Wives of Windsor.’

Vaughan Williams once commented: “The art of music above all arts is the expression of the soul of the nation.” In this piece, he skilfully captures the very essence of England in music. The serene, pastoral sounds evoke images of bucolic bliss, with lyrical string writing and particularly descriptive flute passages. However, the title of his Fantasia is in some ways misleading: the work is neither long enough nor complex enough to deserve the description; instead, it is a rather faithful setting of the original.

The Fantasia on Greensleeves uses not only the traditional tune but also the melody ‘Lovely Joan,’ which Vaughan Williams came across in Suffolk. In 1934, under the watchful eye of the composer, Ralph Greaves arranged Vaughan Williams’s music into the version we most commonly hear today.

Leonard Cohen released an interpretation of the song with altered lyrics and an additional verse titled ‘Leaving Greensleeves’ on his 1974 album New Skin for the Old Ceremony.

What child is this, who, laid to rest, by William Chatterton Dix

What child is this, who, laid to rest,
on Mary’s lap is sleeping,
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,
while shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the King,
whom shepherds guard and angels sing:
haste, haste to bring him laud,
the babe, the son of Mary.

Why lies he in such mean estate,
where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christian, fear; for sinners here
the silent Word is pleading:
nails, spear, shall pierce him through,
the cross be borne, for me, for you:
hail, hail, the Word made flesh,
the babe, the son of Mary.

So bring him incense, gold, and myrrh,
come, peasant, king, to own him.
the King of kings salvation brings:
let loving hearts enthrone him.
Raise, raise the song on high!
The virgin sings her lullaby:
joy, joy, for Christ is born,
the babe, the son of Mary.

Tomorrow: ‘As Joseph was a-walking’

Carols and Hymn for Christmas (8): ‘In the Name of Jesus’ (No 94)

On the Eighth Day of Christmas .. the naming and circumcision of the Christ Child, depicted in a stained-glass window in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We have come to the beginning of New Year 2015. Today (1 January 2015) is New Year’s Day and the Eighth Day of Christmas. In the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of Ireland, this day is a Festival, and in the calendar in Common Worship in the Church of England it is a Holy Day, commemorating ‘The Naming and Circumcision of Jesus.’ In the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church, today celebrates ‘The Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ,’ while the Church in Wales refers to the day as ‘The Naming of Jesus.’

Saint Luke recalls in his Gospel that, in accordance with Jewish tradition and law, eight days after his birth Jesus was circumcised and named. Mary and Joseph named their son Jesus because the angel told them that “he will save his people.” In Hebrew, the name Joshua means “the Lord will save.”

As part of my spiritual reflections for this Christmas season, I am thinking about an appropriate carol or hymn each morning. This morning, I have chosen ‘In the Name of Jesus,’ also known as ‘At the Name of Jesus,’ by the English hymn-writer Caroline Maria Noel (1817-1877).

This is her best known-hymn, and was first written as a Processional for Ascension Day. It is dated 1870 and was first published that year in an enlarged edition of Caroline Noel’s collection The Name of Jesus, &c.

It appears in the Irish Church Hymnal as ‘In the name of Jesus’ (No 94), but in the New English Hymnal it has the title ‘At the Name of Jesus’ (No 338).

Why does this popular hymn have two different names?

The hymn is inspired by a verse in Philippians 2: 10, which says in the original Greek: ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ (en to onomati Iesou). This is translated in the Authorised or King James Version of the Bible as: “at the name of Jesus.” However, when the Revised Version (RV) of the Bible was published in 1881, mainly under the guidance of the Cambridge theologians Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901) and and the Dublin-born Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828–1892), these words were translated more accurately as: “in the name of Jesus.”

However, by the time the Revised Version was published in 1881, Caroline Noel had died four years earlier. She must have used the words found in the KJV, but when the hymn was published in the 1903 edition of Church Hymns (London), her family asked for the change, and this is how it was introduced to the repertoire of the Church of Ireland in 1915.

So an Irish-born Cambridge theologian may have influenced the change of name in one of the most popular Anglican hymns.

Caroline Maria Noel was born in Teston, Kent, on 10 April 1817, the daughter of Canon Gerard Thomas Noel (1782-1851), and niece of the hymn writer the Revd the Hon Baptist Wriothesley Noel (1798-1873). These two brothers, who were born into a large, aristocratic family of 18 children, were evangelical hymn writers in their own right; although Gerard was an Anglican priest all his life, Baptist was a barrister who later became a Church of England before becoming a Baptist minister and later President of the Baptist Union.

At the age of 17, Caroline wrote her first hymn, ‘Draw nigh unto my soul.’ Over the next three years she wrote about a dozen hymns or poems. Then, from the age of 20 to the age of 40, she wrote nothing. At age of 35, she became an invalid, and five years later, she once again picked up her pen to write hymns that would comfort people in their sickness and illness. In her last 20 years, she wrote the rest of her hymns and poems.

The first edition of her hymns was published as The Name of Jesus and Other Verses for the Sick and Lonely (1861). This was enlarged from time to time, and its title was subsequently changed by her publishers to The Name of Jesus and Other Poems (1878).

Caroline Noel, like Charlotte Elliott, suffered greatly, and many of her verses reflect those days of pain. They are specially adapted “for the Sick and Lonely,” and were written for private meditation rather than for public use, although several are suited to the public worship of the Church.

She died at 39 Great Cumberland Place, Hyde Park, on 7 December 1877, and is buried beside her father in Abbey Church, Romsey, Hampshire, where he had been the vicar for many years.

Strangely, this hymn is not what we would expect in a collection aimed at comforting the sick and the lonely. Instead, it is a hymn about Christ and how he bore his suffering on the cross so that he might rise victorious over death.

The fist stanza has echoes of the Christmas Gospel:

who from the beginning
was the mighty Word.

Properly understood, the last verse is comforting, because it promises strength to those who place Christ on the throne of their hearts. It calls us to “Crown him as (our) captain in temptation’s hour,” and to “Let his will enfold (us) in its light and power.”

While this verse does not mention suffering, it reflects Caroline Noel’s understanding that all people, including the sick and the lonely, can find strength by making Christ captain of their lives so that they might experience his light and power.

Both the Irish Church Hymnal and the New English Hymnal suggest the tune Evelyns, composed by William Henry Monk for this hymn at the publication of Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1875. The tune is named after the house in Church Hill, Nutfield, Surrey, where it was composed and is regarded as one of Monk's best hymn tunes.

The Irish Church Hymnal offers as an alternative tune ‘Camberwell,’ which the Revd John Michael Brierley (born 1932) wrote for this hymn in 1960 while he was a student at Lichfield Theological College before his ordination. He named it in honour of the Revd Geoffrey Beaumont (1903–1970), who was then the Rector of Saint George’s, Camberwell, and who is remembered for composing his Twentieth Century Folk Mass, while he was the chaplain of Trinity College, Cambridge, in an attempt to make the Mass relevant to churchgoers in the 1950s. In 1957, he co-founded the Twentieth Century Church Light Music Group with Patrick Appleford, to “promote the use of worship music written in a style based on popular light music of the mid-20th century.” He became a monk when he joined the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield. He published Beaumont Meets Reflection, an original LP in 1970, just before he left England for his final posting with the Community of the Resurrection in South Africa.

The New English Hymnal offers as an alternative ‘King’s Weston,’ which was composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) for this hymn. It was first published in 1925 in Songs of Praise. The tune’s title refers to a manor house on the Avon River at Kingsweston near Bristol. At the time Vaughan Williams composed this tune, the house was being used as a hospital.

This tune is marked by distinctive rhythmic structures and a soaring climax in the final two lines. Like many of Vaughan Williams’s tunes, it is best sung in unison with moderate accompaniment to support this vigorous melody. The combination of Noel’s words and Vaughan William’s tune make this a festive hymn or anthem, and it is a favourite among many choirs.

The tune ‘Cuddesdon,’ named after Cuddesdon Theological College (now Ripon College, Cuddesdon), was written in 1919 with this hymn in mind by Canon William Henry Ferguson, and continues to be associated with it in many hymnals.

Fenton Hort, a portrait by George Percy Jacomb-Hood (1893) in Trinity College, Cambridge ... this Dublin-born theologian may have influenced the change in title of a popular hymn

In the name of Jesus by Caroline Maria Noel

In the name of Jesus
every knee shall bow,
every tongue confess him
King of glory now;
’tis the Father’s pleasure
we should call him Lord,
who from the beginning
was the mighty Word.

Mighty and mysterious
in the highest height,
God from everlasting,
very Light of Light;
in the Father’s bosom
with the Spirit blessed,
Love, in Love eternal,
rest, in perfect rest.

At his voice creation
sprang at once to sight,
all the angels faces,
all the hosts of light;
thrones and dominations,
stars upon their way,
all the heavenly orders
in their great array.

Humbled for a season,
to receive a name
from the lips of sinners
unto whom he came;
faithfully he bore it
spotless to the last,
brought it back victorious,
when from death he passed.

Bore it up triumphant,
with its human light,
through all ranks of creatures
to the central height;
to the eternal Godhead,
to the Father’s throne,
filled it with the glory
of his triumph won.

Name him, Christians, name him,
with love strong as death,
but with awe and wonder,
and with baited breath;
he is God the Saviour,
he is Christ the Lord,
ever to be worshipped,
trusted and adored.

In your hearts enthrone him;
there let him subdue
all that is not holy,
all that is not true;
crown him as your captain
in temptation’s hour,
let his will enfold you
in its light and power.

With the Father’s glory
Jesus comes again,
angel hosts attend him
and announce his reign;
for all wreaths of empire
meet upon his brow,
and our hearts confess him
King of glory now.

Tomorrow: ‘What child is this, who, laid to rest’