Hymns for Advent (25): ‘Once in royal David’s city’ (No 177)

Part of the Nativity scene inside the main doors of Sorrento’s cathedral is on display all year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Patrick Comerford

We have come to the end of the Advent season for this year, and Christmas Eve has arrived. At carol services in cathedrals and churches throughout the Anglican Communion this afternoon, a shared tradition in many places on Christmas Eve is singing ‘Once in royal David’s city,’ often with a boy chorister singing the opening stanza as an unaccompanied solo.

As part of my spiritual reflections for Advent this year, I have been looking at an appropriate hymn for Advent each morning. This morning [24 December 2014], as I come to the end of these reflections, predictably chosen for my Advent hymn today ‘Once in royal David’s city,’ which is No 177 in the Irish Church Hymnal and No 34 in the New English Hymnal.

Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895) took her position as an Anglican bishop’s wife very seriously. She accompanied her husband throughout his Ireland travels, taking a special interest in children.

She wrote a number of poems and hymns for children, and was the author of more than 400 hymns, including ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful.’ Her most famous collection was published in 1848, Hymns for Little Children. This collection included ‘Once in Royal David’s City.’ A year later, the English composer and organist Henry John Gauntlett (1805-1876) found her poem and set it to music with the tune, ‘Irby,’ named after a village on the Wirral Peninsula. Gauntlett is said to have composed the music for more than 10,000 hymns; however, as this would mean he wrote three hymns a day for 30 years, this figure is doubtful.

Gauntlett has been described as the “Father of Church Music,” for he was the creator of the school of four-part hymn tunes, although it is debatable whether he deserves this accolade. He was admired by Mendelssohn, who wrote of him: “His literary attainments, his knowledge of the history of music, his acquaintance with acoustical law, his marvellous memory, his philosophical turn of mind as well as practical experience —these render him one of the most remarkable professors of the age.”

Cecil Frances Humphreys was born in 1823, the second daughter of the late Major John Humphreys, of Miltown House, near Strabane, Co Tyrone. As a small girl, she wrote poetry in her school journal.

In 1850, she married the Revd Dr William Alexander, who later became Bishop of Derry and Raphoe in the Church of Ireland, and then Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. She showed her concern for disadvantaged people by travelling many miles each day to visit the sick and the poor, providing food, warm clothes, and medical supplies. She and her sister also founded a school for the deaf.

Mrs Alexander was strongly influenced by the Oxford Movement and by John Keble’s Christian Year. Her first book of poetry, Verses for Seasons, was a “Christian Year” for children. She wrote hymns based on the Apostles’ Creed, Baptism, the Eucharist, the Ten Commandments, and prayer, writing in simple language for children. Her more than 400 hymn texts were published in Verses from the Holy Scripture (1846), Hymns for Little Children (1848), and Hymns Descriptive and Devotional (1858). She also contributed to the Lyra Anglicana, the SPCK Psalms and Hymns, Hymns Ancient and Modern, and other collections.

Some of her narrative hymns are rather heavy, perhaps even dull. But a large number remain popular and well-loved, including ‘All things bright and beautiful’ (ICH, No 25), ‘Once in royal David’s city’ (No 177), ‘There is a green hill far away’ (244) and ‘Jesus calls us! O’er the tumult’ (No 335).

This morning’s hymn was one of a series of hymns written to provide simple explanations of clauses in the Apostles’ Creed, with this hymn based on the words “who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary.”

Stanzas 1 and 2 describe the birth of Christ in simple terms. The city, of course, is Bethlehem, his birthplace and the birthplace of his ancestor, King David. As we all know, Mary and Joseph were there to be counted in the census, which, as in our day, determined the tax distribution and burden of many communities, and was a real hardship for the poor who had to travel across difficult terrain.

Stanzas 3 and 4 look at Christ’s childhood as a pattern and example for children in living their lives.

Stanzas 4 and 5 proclaim the divinity of Christ and point to his heavenly glory, which is in sharp contrast to the humble circumstances of his birth. The Christ Child who was born in humility and poverty is not only our pattern and example but also our Redeemer, seated in glory at God’s right hand in heaven.

Over the years, many changes have been made to the wording of this hymn. Some alterations changed the original “lowly maiden” to “lowly mother” concerned that the word “maiden” might imply the perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary. However the original words have been restored in the fifth edition of the Irish Church Hymnal.

Since 1918, the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, has begun its Christmas Eve service with Dr Arthur Henry Mann’s arrangement of ‘Once in royal David’s City’ as the processional hymn.

Mann was Organist and Director of Music at King’s from 1876 until his death in 1929. In his arrangement, the first verse is sung by a boy chorister of the Choir of King’s Chapel as a solo. The second verse is sung by the choir, and the congregation joins in the third verse. Excluding the first verse, the hymn is accompanied by the organ. This carol was the first recording that the King’s College Choir under Boris Ord made for EMI in 1948.

This carol has had the distinction of being is one of only two carols or hymns that are sung annually at the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols on Christmas Eve in King’s College ... ‘Hark! the herald-angels sing’ (ICH, No 160).

Now, every year without fail, at 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve, this is the opening carol from the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, and it is broadcast live from Cambridge on the BBC Radio 4. The opening words are always the same: “And now from the Chapel of King Henry VIII, King’s College Cambridge, a service of Nine Lessons and Carols.”

The boys of the choir are all capable of opening, but the choirmaster only chooses the choirboy shortly before the broadcast and it is considered a great honour. For many, this carol is a reminder that Love and goodness are rare and wonderful gifts, and for man too to hear it live on BBC Radio 4 marks the true start of Christmas.

We used this carol in a similar way at the opening of the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on Monday evening [22 December 2014].



 Once in royal David’s city, by Mrs Cecil Frances Alexander

Once in royal David’s city
stood a lowly cattle shed,
where a mother laid her baby
in a manger for his bed;
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ her little child.

He came down to earth from heaven,
who is God and Lord of all,
and his shelter was a stable,
and his cradle was a stall;
with the poor, and mean, and lowly
lived on earth our Saviour holy.

And through all his wondrous childhood
he would honour and obey,
love and watch the lowly maiden
in whose gentle arms he lay;
Christian children all must be
kind, obedient, good as he.

For he is our childhood’s pattern,
day by day like us he grew;
he was little, weak and helpless,
tears and smiles like us he knew;
and he feeleth for our sadness,
and he shareth in our gladness.

And our eyes at last shall see him,
through his own redeeming love,
for that child so dear and gentle
is our Lord in heaven above;
and he leads his children on
to the place where he is gone.

Not in that poor lowly stable,
with the oxen standing by,
we shall see him; but in heaven,
set at God’s right hand on high;
when like stars his children crowned
all in white shall wait around.

Series concluded.

Tomorrow: Carols and Hymns for Christmas (1): ‘In the bleak mid-winter’ (No 162)

Hymns for Advent (24): ‘Wake, O wake! O wake! With tidings thrilling’ (No 142)

Professor Francis Crawford Burkitt of Cambridge, who translated this morning's hymn, played a key role in the adventures of Agnes and Margaret Smith in Mount Sinai

Patrick Comerford

As part of my spiritual reflections for Advent this year, I have been looking at an appropriate hymn for Advent each morning. This morning [23 December 2014], as we come close to the end of Advent, I have chosen the Advent hymn “Wake, O wake! With tidings thrilling” by Philipp Nicolai (1556-1608).

This hymn, written Philipp Nicolai in 1597, is included as an Advent hymn in both the Irish Church Hymnal (142) and the New English Hymnal (No 16). We sang it as the Offertory hymn when I presided at the Cathedral Eucharist in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, the Sunday before last, the Third Sunday of Advent [14 December 2014].

This hymn was written by Nicolai as an appendix (Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme) to a book of reflections in which he considered the death of 1,300 of his parishioners, at the rate of 30 a day, during am epidemic that swept through the district of Unna in Westphalia, during a six-month period between July 1597 and January 1598.

The hymn is also a tribute to his close friend and former pupil, Wilhelm Ernst Graf zu Walbeck, who died in 1598.

The hymn is based on the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins (Matthew 25: 1-13), which is one of the traditional Gospel readings during this season of Advent, and the vision of a new Jerusalem found in the Book of Revelations (see Revelation 19: 7, 9 and 21: 21).

The time of fear and waiting passes and the promise of hope is fulfilled with the arrival of the Lord. The new Jerusalem, the heavenly city, is better than anywhere or any place we find ourselves today.

This hymn was translated into English by many writers, including Canon A. Cooke and Catherine Winkworth. But the version in the Irish Church Hymnal was translated in 1906 by Francis Crawford Burkitt (1864-1935), a year after he became Norris Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge.

Burkitt accompanied Robert Bensly, James Rendel Harris, and the sisters Agnes and Margaret Smith on the 1893 expedition to Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai to examine a Syriac palimpsest of the Gospels discovered there the previous year by the two sisters. Burkitt played a key role in deciphering the texts, and in subsequent publication of the team’s findings.

That story has been told delightfully by Professor Janet Soskice in her Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Found the Hidden Gospels (London: Vintage, 2010).

The tune Wachet auf, which has been described as the “King of Chorales,” was written by Philipp Nicolai and was harmonised by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) in his Cantata No 140. The tune was also used by Mendelssohn as the overture to his oratorio Saint Paul.

Wake, O wake! With tidings thrilling by Philiipp Nicolai

Wake, o wake! with tidings thrilling
the watchmen all the air are filling,
arise, Jerusalem, arise!
Midnight strikes! no more delaying,
“The hour has come!” we hear them saying.
Where are ye all, ye virgins wise?
The Bridegroom comes in sight,
raise high your torches bright!
Alleluia! The wedding song
swells long and strong:
go forth and join the festal throng.

Zion hears the watchmen shouting,
her heart leaps with joy undoubting,
she stands and waits with eager eyes;
adorned with truth and grace unending!
Her light burns clear, her star doth rise.
Now come, thou precious Crown,
Lord Jesus, God’s own Son!
Hosanna! Let us prepare
to follow there,
where in thy supper we may share.

Every soul in thee rejoices;
from men and angelic voices
be glory given to thee alone!
Thy presence never more shall leave us,
we stand with angels round thy throne.
Earth cannot give below
the bliss thou dost bestow.
Alleluia! Grant us to raise
to length of days,
the triumph-chorus of thy praise.

Tomorrow: ‘Once in royal David’s city’

Hymns for Advent (23): ‘When came in flesh the incarnate Word’ (NEH 17)

‘From east to west shall shine / The judgment light ... ’ sunset on Lough Ramor at Virginia, Co Cavan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

As part of my spiritual reflections for Advent this year, I am looking at an appropriate hymn for Advent each morning. This morning [22 December 2014], I have chosen the Advent hymn ‘When came in flesh the incarnate Word’ by Joseph Anstice (1808-1836).

This hymn is not included in Irish Church Hymnal, but is part of the Advent collection in the New English Hymnal (No 17).

Joseph Anstice was born in 1808, Madeley, Shropshire, the son of William Anstice of Madeley. He went to school in Enmore, near Bridgwater, and Westminster, before going to Christ Church, Oxford, where he gained two two prizes in English and graduated as a double first.

Anstice was only 22 when he was appointed Professor of Classical Literature at King’s College, London.

His works included Richard Coeur de Lion (1828), a prize poem; The Influence of the Roman Conquest upon Literature and the Arts in Rome (Oxford prize Essay); and Selections from the Choice Poetry of the Greek Dramatic Writers, translated into English Verse (1832).

He was 28 when he died at Torquay on 29 February 1836. A few months later, his hymns were printed in June 1836 as Hymns by the late Joseph Anstice, M.A., formerly Student of Christ Church, Oxford, and Professor of Classical Literature, King’s College, London (Bridgwater, 1836).

The book includes 52 hymns and a poem ‘To my Hymn Book.’ The hymns were all dictated to his wife during the last few weeks of his life, and were composed in the afternoon, “his brighter morning hours being given to pupils up to the very day of his death.” The circumstances under which they were written account for the prevailing sadness that characterises the hymns.

The tune Walsall, used for this hymn in the New English Hymnal, is found in A Choice Collection of Psalm tunes (1721) by William Anchors. It has been attributed to Henry Purcell (1658-1695), although there is no evidence to support this claim.

Purcell was one of the best known English composers of the baroque period, writing operas, plays and songs. Purcell was born in London on 10 September 1658, and began his musical career as a chorister in the Chapel Royal.

He was writing music as early as the age of 8, when his three-part song appeared in Playford’s Catch That Catch Can. Purcell worked as an organ tuner in Westminster Abbey (1674-78). His earliest anthem, ‘Lord, who can tell,’ was composed in 1678. It is a psalm that is prescribed for Christmas Day and also to be read at Morning Prayer on the fourth day of the month.

In 1679, he became the organist in Westminster Abbey, where he devoted himself almost entirely to the composition of sacred music. Three years later, he became the organist at the Chapel Royal.

In 1685, he wrote two of his finest anthems, I was glad and My heart is inditing, for the coronation of James II. In 1687, Purcell also composed a march and quick-step, which became so popular that Lord Wharton adapted it to the fatal verses of Lillibullero. His chamber opera Dido and Aeneas was first performed in 1689.

His Te Deum and Jubilate Deo were written for Saint Cecilia’s Day, 1694, the first English Te Deum composed with orchestral accompaniment.

Purcell was at the height of his career when he died on 21 November 1695 at his home in Dean’s Yard, Westminster, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey beside the organ in the north aisle. The music he had earlier composed for Queen Mary’s funeral was performed during his funeral too.

Purcell’s legacy is a uniquely English form of baroque music. He is generally considered one of the greatest English composers; no other native-born English composer approached his fame until Edward Elgar. He has had a strong influence on English composers in the 20th century, especially Benjamin Britten.

The Dean’s Yard at Westminster Abbey ... Henry Purcell died at his home in Dean’s Yard on 21 November 1695 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

According to Pete Townshend of The Who, Purcell was among his influences, particularly evident in the opening bars of The Who’s Pinball Wizard.

When came in flesh the incarnate Word, by Joseph Anstice:

When came in flesh the incarnate Word,
The heedless world slept on,
And only simple shepherds heard
That God had sent his Son.

When comes the Saviour at the last,
From east to west shall shine
The judgment light, and earth aghast
Shall tremble at the sign.

Then shall the pure of heart be blest;
As mild he comes to them,
As when upon the Virgin’s breast
He lay at Bethlehem:

As mild to meek-eyed love and faith,
Only more strong to save;
Strengthened by having bowed to death,
By having burst the grave.

Lord, who could dare see thee descend
In state, unless he knew
Thou art the sorrowing sinner’s friend,
The gracious and the true?

Dwell in our hearts, O Saviour blest;
So shall thine advent’s dawn
’Twixt us and thee, our bosom-guest,
Be but the veil withdrawn.

Tomorrow: ‘Wake, O wake! O wake! With tidings thrilling’

‘The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight’

A Tuscan scene in Wallace’s Taverna … a scene that would not be strange to refugees in the Middle East (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

Before the carol service in Marlay Park ended last night, one of the priests from Ballinteer Parish asked us to remember Christians in many parts of the Middle East who would not be free to gather in public to sing carols this Christmas or the celebrate Christmas.

It was an appropriate reminder at an appropriate time that the Christmas story is not a comfortable story: it is the story of a migrant family in the bleak mid-winter, it is the story of a homeless family refused a room on the streets of a once-royal city, it continues with the story of mass murder by a tyrannical despot who feels insecure after a visit by foreigners and strangers, and it moves on to the story of a refugee family seeking asylum after crossing the desert and one of the great rivers of the Middle East.

These are all themes in today’s Middle East, and they came up in wandering conversations over lunch this afternoon in Wallace’s Taverna in the Italian Quarter in Dublin this afternoon.

Earlier, in the morning, I had been the sub-deacon at the Eucharist in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, assisting at the celebration and at the administration of the Holy Communion. As we prepared to leave the chancel and the organist began to play the recessional voluntary, the lights went out throughout the cathedral, the alarms sounded, and we left in silence.

There was no fire, but roadworks or utility works outside had cut the power supply to the cathedral, and you could say, I suppose, that a people who had seen great lights walked out in darkness.

Waiting for Christmas ... in Christ Church Cathedral before the Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday of Advent (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Later, four of us met in Walace’s Taverna for lunch, and a family member recounted stories from his visits to Beirut, the Beeka Valley and Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon, and Antakya in southern Turkey and places east along the borders with Syria and Iraq.

The photographs from were amazing. They are not mine to show, but they included a large domed mosque in Beirut, lit up with stars and an impressive, tall Christmas Tree; Armenian and Maronite churches; a Druze khalwat, vineyards and cultivated terraces in the Bekaa Valley; and signs for some of the best Lebanese vineyards, including Chateau Musar, Clos Saint Thomas and Cave Kouroum.

There were photographs too of Syrian refugee camps, and Syrian children in makeshift schools.

And we discussed the distressing plight of the Yazidi refugees, all but forgotten after intense media attention a few months ago.

The photographs of the mosque with Christmas decorations – including two reindeer – and the mixture of religious traditions led to a discussion of the delicate balance in Lebanon which was once a multi-confessional state, how the protection of religious and ethnic minorities has been lost in Syria, and how it is not just Christians but people from many other faiths, including the Druze and Yazidi people, and many Muslims of different schools, are not free to gather and worship in the way they would like.

Those Syrian children looked as though could have been children in any school in Greece or Italy.

We were seated at a table by a window, looking out onto the Quays and the bridges over the River Liffey. Behind our table, a mural depicted a typical scene in Tuscany, with vineyards, cultivated terraces, bridges and a romantic Tuscan town in the distance.

It was a scene that those refugee children from Syria in schools and camps in Lebanon and Turkey could have identified with only a short time ago. I am sure tranquil scenes like this were once the norm in many parts of Lebanon, Syria and Turkey.

Christmas should be a time of peace for all – for children especially, and not just for Christians alone:

O little town of Bethlehem,
how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
the silent stars go by;
yet in thy dark streets shineth
the everlasting Light;
the hopes and fears of all the years
are met in thee tonight.

O morning stars, together
proclaim the holy birth,
and praises sing to God the King,
and peace to all on earth.
For Christ is born of Mary;
and gathered, all above,
while mortals sleep, the angels keep
their watch of wondering love.

How silently, how silently,
the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming,
but in this world of sin,
where meek souls will receive him, still
the dear Christ enters in.

O holy Child of Bethlehem,
descend to us, we pray;
cast out our sin, and enter in;
be born to us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
our Lord, Emmanuel.

A toy dog is not just for Christmas? … a trader’s stall in Henry Street this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Later, we went strolling through the streets behind Ormond Quay and Bachelor’s Walk to see the bustle of last-minute Christmas shopping in Henry Street and Mary Street.

There were no “last of the Cheeky Charlies” to get, and the latest must-have to buy as a last-minute bargain seems to be a selfie stick allowing you to take “selfies” with ample panoramic background.

I also took a detour into the “Church” – the former Saint Mary’s Church of Ireland parish church which has been turned into a café and bar. But that’s a story for another day.

Behind the Church, there was a funfair in Wolfe Tone Street, and few trees were lit up in bright lights – but they came nowhere near the delightful sight of Christmas trees and reindeer on that mosque in Beirut.

Christmas lights on the trees in Wolfe Tone Square behind the former Saint Mary’s Church in Mary Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Hymns for Advent (22): ‘Gabriel’s message does away’ (NEH 4)

The Annunciation … an icon by the Romanian icon writer, Mihai Cocu in the Lady Chapel in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

As part of my spiritual reflections for Advent this year, I am looking at an appropriate hymn for Advent each morning. Today [21 December 2014] is the Fourth Sunday of Advent, and the readings in the Revised Common Lectionary are: II Samuel 7: 1-11, 16; The Canticle Magnificat (Luke 1: 46b-55) or Psalm 89: 1-4, 19-26; Romans 16: 25-27; and Luke 1: 26-38.

Luke 1: 26-38

26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.” 29 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30 The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. 31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34 Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 35 The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36 And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38 Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

On the Fourth Sunday of Advent, the last purple candle is lit on the Advent, and this traditionally represents the Virgin Mary.

The following prayers at the Advent Wreath are provided in Common Worship for the Fourth Sunday of Advent:

Blessed are you, sovereign Lord, merciful and gentle:
to you be praise and glory for ever.
Your light has shone in our darkened world
through the child-bearing of blessed Mary;
grant that we who have seen your glory
may daily be renewed in your image
and prepared like her for the coming of your Son,
who is the Lord and Saviour of all.
Blessed be God for ever.

God our Father,
the angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary
that she was to be the mother of your Son.
Though Mary was afraid,
she responded to your call with joy.
Help us, whom you call to serve you,
to share like her in your great work
of bringing to our world your love and healing.
We ask this through Jesus Christ,
the light who is coming into the world.
Amen.

Lord Jesus, light of the world,
blessed is Gabriel,who brought good news;
blessed is Mary, your mother and ours.
Bless your Church preparing for Christmas;
and bless us your children, who long for your coming.
Amen.

People of God: prepare!
God, above all, maker of all
is one with us in Christ.
Maranatha!
Come, Lord Jesus!
God, the mighty God,
bends down in love to earth.
Maranatha!
Come, Lord Jesus!
God with us, God beside us,
comes soon to the world he has made.
Maranatha!
Come, Lord Jesus!
We are God’s children,
we seek the coming Christ.
Maranatha!
Come,Lord Jesus!

So, on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, I have chosen as my Advent hymn ‘Gabriel’s message does away.’ This is Hymn No 4 in the New Church Hymnal, but is not included in the Irish Church Hymnal.

This is a translation by the Revd John Mason Neale (1818-1866) of Angelus emitter, a Latin hymn found in the Finnish collection Piae Cantiones (1582), and that may date from the 13th Century or earlier.

The Archangel Gabriel’s message to the Virgin Mary, and her subsequent “Yes,” mark the dawn of our redemption. This is a hymn about the triumph of Christ over Satan, and may also be used for the Annunciation (25 March), at Easter or for Christmas, as well as Advent.

This hymn was first translated from Latin into English by Neale for Carols for Christmas-Tide 1853, and was harmonised at that time by the Revd Thomas Helmore. Their original refrain was:

Therefore sing – Glory to the infant King!

However, most hymnals omit the original antiphon:

Beata es Maria quae credidisti:
perficientur in te quae dicta sunt tibi a Domino.
Alleluia.

O Mary, blessed art thou that didst believe
for there shall be a performance of those things which were told thee from the Lord.
Alleluia.

The Gate of Honour at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge ... Charles Wood, who was organist and fellow here, wrote the harmony for today’s hymn preferred in the ‘New English Hymnal’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The version in New English Hymnal includes both a harmony by Charles Wood (1866-1926) and a choir version with a harmony by GR Woodward (1848-1934). The hymn has been harmonised by others, including Sir Richard Runciman Terry (1865-1938).

Charles Wood was born in Armagh in 1866 and studied composition under Charles Villiers Stanford before going on to study music in Cambridge. He became an organ scholar at Gonville and Caius College in 1889, became organist in 1891, and was elected a Fellow in 1894, the first fellow in music to be elected by a Cambridge college. He succeeded Stanford as Professor of Music in Cambridge in 1924, but died two years later in 1926.

His students included some of the great composers of the 20th century, including Ralph Vaughan Williams, Herbert Howells, Michael Tippett and Thomas Beecham.



Gabriel’s message does away translated by John Mason Neale

Gabriel’s message does away
Satan’s curse and Satan’s sway,
Out of darkness brings our Day:
So, behold,
All the gates of heaven unfold.

He that comes despised shall reign;
He that cannot die, be slain;
Death by death its death shall gain:
So, behold,
All the gates of heaven unfold.

Weakness shall the strong confound;
By the hands, in grave-clothes wound,
Adam’s chains shall be unbound:
So, behold,
All the gates of heaven unfold.

By the sword that was his own,
By that sword, and that alone,
Shall Goliath be o’erthrown:
So, behold,
All the gates of heaven unfold.

Art by art shall be assailed;
To the cross shall Life be nailed;
From the grave shall hope be hailed:
So, behold,
All the gates of heaven unfold.

The Annunciation portrayed on a panel on the triptych in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Tomorrow: ‘When came in flesh the incarnate Word’ (NEH 17)

‘The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light’

A peacock walks through the Regency Walled Garden in Marlay Park this evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

I am not all-carolled-out yet. There’s still five more days to go to Christmas, and quite a few events yet to come at which carols are part of the programme.

This afternoon [20 December 2014], two of us went to the traditional Ecumenical Carol Service in Marlay Park. For years, this carol service has been hosted by the local Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland parishes, and for a long time it was held in the courtyard.

However, the venue has been moved recently because of pressure from the Saturday traders in the courtyard, and the service has been moved to an annex behind the coffee shop and beside the walled garden.

Before the service began, we enjoyed falafel wraps from the ‘Flavours of Palestine’ stall in the courtyard, and couple espressos from Bryan’s Coffee, and then strolled through the Regency Walled Garden as the evening lights were beginning to fade.

In other seasons of the year, this walled garden is riot of colour with its flowers, shrubs, trees and berries.

A strutting, confident peacock was the main colourful attraction in the Regency Walled Garden in Marlay Park this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

But late this afternoon, the main attraction in colour was a peacock strutting around quite fearlessly, pecking up bits of food dropped in the grass by people from the coffee shop and even confronting children in a cheeky manner, obviously begging for their children.

Early Christians used the peacock as a symbol of resurrection and eternal life because of an ancient belief that the flesh of the peacock never decayed. From the early third century, the walls of the catacombs in Rome were decorated with peacocks in mosaics and paintings, representing the hope that the mortal earthly body of Christians would become glorified bodies in eternal life.

When the peacock displays his pride or tail, it looks like hundreds of eyes are watching us. In this way, the peacock also became a symbol of the all-seeing eye of God and that nothing escapes God’s universal justice.

‘The Adoration of the Magi’ by Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi (Florence, ca 1440/1460) … notice the peacock on the roof

When Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi collaborated in a unique work, ‘The Adoration of the Magi,’ in Florence around 1440-1460, produced one of the first examples of a tondo, or circular painting, which in the mid-15th century became popular for domestic religious paintings. But they also included a similar engaging and curious peacock on the roof, observing the whole scene.

In this one work of art, these two Florentine artists linked the Incarnation and the story of the first Christmas with the Resurrection and the story of Easter.

After darkness fell this afternoon, we sang our way through the Christmas story at the carol service which was hosted this year by Marley Parish, with the support of Good Counsel Parish, Ballyboden, Divine Word Parish, Marley Grange, Saint John the Evangelist Parish, Ballinteer, and the Church of Ireland Parish in Whitechurch.

We sang old favourites, including ‘O come all ye faithful,’ Dingdong! Merrily on high,’ ‘Mary’s boy child,’ ‘While shepherds watched,’ ‘Hark the Herald Angels sing,’ Joy to the World,’ and ‘Away in a manger,’ while Catherine Martin of Ballybdoen sang a solo rendition of ‘O Holy Night.’

‘The people who walked in darkness’ … this evening’s carol service in Marlay Park (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

I was asked on behalf of Whitechurch Parish to read from the Prophet Isaiah:

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire. For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. (Isaiah 9: 2-7).

Again, the connection was made between the first Christmas and the promise of God’s coming ever-lasting justice.

Despite problems with the sound system and the winter cold, we all said the Lord’s Prayer together. I was asked the join the other clergy in the blessing before Dermot McGowan led us in singing Silent Night – as he has done for years.

The people who arrived in afternoon brightness waked out of the walled garden in darkness. From tomorrow the darkness begins to recede and the days begin to get longer once again. But there are still many carols to sing before Christmas arrives with the promise of the coming of God’s justice and eternal life.

Darkness begins to fall in Marlay Park this evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Hymns for Advent (21): ‘Lift up your heads, you mighty gates’ (No 131)

The Altroßgärter Kirche in Königsberg ... Georg Weissel wrote ‘Lift up your heads, you mighty gates’ for use in this this church, which was demolished after the Battle of Königsberg in 1945

Patrick Comerford

As part of my spiritual reflections for Advent this year, I am looking at an appropriate hymn for Advent each morning. This morning [20 December 2014], I have chosen ‘Lift up your heads, you mighty gates,’ which is Hymn 131 in the Irish Church Hymnal.

This is a translation by Catherine Winkworth (1829-1878) of a German hymn for Advent, Mach hoch die Thür, das Thor mach weit, written by Georg Weissel and based on Psalm 24: 7, 9.

Georg Weissel is one of the most important of the early hymn-writers of Prussia. He wrote about 20 hymns, the earliest of which was written for use at the consecration of his new church, the Altroßgärter Kirche (Old Rossgarten Church) in north-east Königsberg, on the Second Sunday in Advent, 1623. This hymn may also have been sung on that occasion, although it was written for the First Sunday of Advent.

The son of a Prussian judge and burgomaster or mayor, he was born in Doranau, 40 km south-east of Königsberg, now Kaliningrad, an isolated Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania He was educated in Königsberg, and later in Wittenberg, Leipzig, Jena, Strasbourg, Basel and Marburg. After a few years working at a school near Domnau, he returned to Königsberg to resume his theological studies. In 1623 he became the pastor of the Altrossgärter Kirche and there he remained until he died on 1 August 1635.

Some of his hymns have been translated into English, including today’s hymn, Macht hoch die Thür, das Thor macht weit. This Advent hymn on the Triumph for the Entry of the King of Glory is based on part of Psalm 24. The present third stanza alludes to the thoughts in I Corinthians 3: 16: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s spirit dwells in you.”

This is One of the finest German Advent hymns, and it was first published in the Preussische Fest-Lieder in 1642.

Altrossgarten Church was heavily damaged during the bombing of Königsberg in 1944 and the Battle of Königsberg in 1945. The ruins were demolished by the Soviet administration in Kaliningrad in 1968. A silver-gilt chalice from the church is now in the Berlin archives of the Evangelical Church in Germany.

This hymn was translated by Catherine Winkworth, one of the greatest hymn writers in English, after John and Charles Wesley and John Mason Neale. She translated many hymns from German into English in Lyra Germanica (1855 and 1878) and Christian Singers of Germany (1869).

Catherine Winkworth was born in London 13 September 1829, the daughter of Henry Winkworth of Alderley Edge, Cheshire, and spent most of her early life in the Manchester area before moving to Clifton, near Bristol. She died suddenly of heart disease, at Monnetier, in Savoy, in July 1878.

The tune Wellington, supplied in the Irish Church Hymnal and the New English Hymnal for this hymn, was written by the English composer Michael Paschal Marcon Fleming (1928-2006), a former Warden of the Royal School of Church Music who had a significant influence on the standard of Anglican church music, through the RSCM and as director of music at several London churches.

He was born in 1928 in Oxford, where his father, the Revd ainGuy Fleming, was curate at the Anglo-Catholic St Mary Magdalen’s. His grandfather, Canon Arthur Fleming, was Precentor of Gloucester Cathedral and headmaster of the cathedral school.

He studied music at Durham University before moving to Cambridge as organist and choirmaster at Saint Giles, and continuing to study organ with George Guest at Saint John’s College. At Chingford Church in Essex, his teacher was Harold Darke. In 1958, Fleming was appointed Director of Music at All Saints’ Church, Margaret Street, London. Later, he held appointments in Croydon, Addington Palace, Saint Mary’s, Primrose Hill, where church music had been recovered for the Church of England by Percy Dearmer, and Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn.

In the early 1980s, Fleming built on Percy Dearmer’s work as a member of the editorial team of the New English Hymnal, to which he contributed much of the plainsong.

It was said that when he left Saint Alban’s, Holborn, in 1998, after 18 years the choir had the most extensive repertoire of any church in Britain. There he conducted the first liturgical performance, on All Souls’ Day 1987, and in the composer’s presence, of John Rutter’s Requiem. Bryan Kelly heard his own Like as the Hart for the first time on a visit to Saint Alban’s.

Fleming insisted that the words of hymns should be heard. Above all, he considered good music to be the handmaid of the liturgy and in 1999 he was awarded an MA Lambeth Degree “in recognition of his contribution to church music and liturgy.”

Shortly before his death he was working on the New English Hymnal supplement, New English Praise. His funeral took place on the eve of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart.

Lift up your heads, you mighty gates, by Georg Weissel, translated by Catherine Winkworth:

Lift up your heads, you mighty gates;
behold, the king of glory waits!
The King of kings is drawing near;
the Saviour of the world is here.

O blessed the land, the city blessed,
where Christ the ruler is confessed!
O happy hearts and happy homes
to whom this King in triumph comes!

Fling wide the portals of your heart;
make it a temple, set apart
from earthly use for heaven’s employ,
adorned with prayer and love and joy.

Redeemer, come, with us abide!
Our hearts to you we open wide;
let us thy inner presence feel;
your grace and love in us reveal.

Tomorrow: ‘Gabriel’s message does away’ (New English Hymnal 4)

Three wise men arrive a little early at the front door and at Farmleigh

‘O Star of wonder, star of night / Star with royal beauty bright …’ night fall at the Boathouse in Farmleigh this evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

I have not sent any Christmas cards … yet.

I know the last posting day for Christmas to most parts of the world, to even most parts of Ireland, has probably passed. But I still have not sent any Christmas cards.

There is a well-respected tradition in Ireland – or so I am told (and this shall be my excuse) – that families do not send Christmas cards in the Christmas season after the death of a close family member.

I decided at the last moment to take out my list, and start writing cards and envelopes. They had piled up on the floor around me when the plumber arrived this morning, not one but three plumbers, on three separate occasions, like three wise men one after another.

I’m glad they came and created havoc … the havoc would have been even greater by Christmas Day, because after the first visit the drip had turned to a drizzle, and by this afternoon it could have been a downpour.

Whatever about three plumbers coming at Christmas-time, I know Santa is coming. I saw him everywhere in Woodie’s in Lucan this afternoon.

Fixed figures in a crib in Woodie’s in Lucan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

I left the pile of unfinished Christmas cards and went shopping for a few hours this afternoon. There were Santas all over the shop, some as large as life, some with 40% off, some with even 70% off.

And there were cribs everywhere too. One was a fixed crib. Or at least the figures were fixed. If I bought it this afternoon, Mary and Joseph would have arrived in the house today too … along with the Christ Child, a shepherd, and the three Wise Men.

If the three Magi had arrived home with me in one of those fixed cribs they would have had no time to go shopping for their gold, frankincense and myrrh … and there are still 18 more days to Epiphany.

Perhaps they were called in to fix the plumbing.

Instead of buying a Santa or a crib, I bought six espresso cups and saucers ... double espressos for three wise men, should they call, and, well, I get through a lot of coffee anyway.

Rudolph and his friends waiting for Santa in the Phoenix Park (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Later in the afternoon, it was obvious that Santa is coming, and that his preparations are in the final stages. From Woodie’s, two of us made our way through Palmerstown and Chapelizod to the Phoenix Park, where there were a lot more deer in the park than Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, Rudolph and Olive (you remember Olive the other reindeer, don’t you?).

There were hundreds of them in the Phoenix Park this afternoon, some dashing, some dancing, some prancing too, but none at all afraid of the people who came close to them. That’s probably because at this time of the year they are used to Santa and the elves coming along and picking and choosing which among them is going to pull the sleigh this year.

The Wise Men have arrived at the crib in Farmleigh … long before the Child in the Manger (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

By the time we got to Farmleigh, the park was almost covered in darkness.

The crib by the house in Farmleigh already has Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the animals – and the three Wise Men, but no Christ Child. Well that’s what the Magi get for arriving too early … not a wise call at all.

They shall just have to wait a while now … unless there was another plumbing job they need to see to.

Meanwhile, there was time for two double espressos and two scones at the Boathouse, looking out at the decking and the boating lake that was once the privileged preserve of the Guinness family.

Outside, as we left, we could catch a glimpse of the city lights below the Phoenix Park, looking seasonal and warm and welcoming.

I ought to get down to writing the rest of those Christmas cards … before the child or the Magi arrive.

Hopefully there is no need for plumbers between now and Epiphany.

Christmas light as darkness envelops Farmeligh this evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Hymns for Advent (20): ‘Creator of the starry height’ (No 121)

‘Starry Night’ (1889) by Vincent van Gogh

Patrick Comerford

As part of my spiritual reflections for Advent this year, I am looking at an appropriate hymn for Advent each morning. This morning [19 December 2014], I have chosen ‘Creator of the starry height’, which is Hymn 121 in the Irish Church Hymnal.

This is a translation by the Revd John Mason Neale (1818-1866) of a Latin hymn for Advent, Conditor alme siderum, that may date back to the ninth century, or perhaps earlier to the seventh or even the sixth century.

Neale translated six of the seven verses for the Hymnal Noted Part I (1852). His original version begins: “Creator of the stars of night.” The “starry heigh” was an alteration to his text by WH Monk and Charles Steggall when they were editing Hymns Ancient and Modern (London, 1889), where it appears as Hymn 45.

Neale was born in Conduit Street, London, on 24 January 1818, the son of the Revd Cornelius Neale, a Fellow of Saint John’s College, Cambridge, and both his parents were said to have been “very pronounced Evangelicals.” He was named after the Puritan cleric and hymn writer John Mason (1645-1694), an ancestor of his mother, Susanna Mason Good.

His father died in 1823, and he was sent to school at Sherborne School, Dorset, before going on to Trinity College Cambridge in 1836.

After graduating in 1840, he was elected Fellow and Tutor of Downing College and appointed chaplain. As a graduate, he won the Seatonian Prize eleven times. In Cambridge, he was also one of the founders of the Cambridge Camden Society, later known as the Ecclesiological Society.

In 1842, he married Sarah Norman Webster, the daughter of an evangelical clergyman. In 1843, he was appointed Vicar of Crawley in Sussex, but was prevent by ill-health from being instituted. After some time recuperating in Madeira, he was appointed by Lord De La Warr as Warden of Sackville College, an almshouse for elderly men in East Grinstead, Sussex. There he spent the rest of life, and founded the Sisterhood of Saint Margaret, a religious community of women who moved to East Grinstead in 1856.

His theological opinions were opposed violently and with such prejudice that he was attack and beaten physically on occasion. He was inhibited by the Bishop of Chichester, Ashurst Turner Gilbert, from exercising his priestly duties in the village for 14 years, and this was not formally removed until 1863. But Neale faced prejudice with courage and charity. His close friends included the Revd Dr Richard Frederick Littledale (1833-1890), the Dublin-born priest and writer who had a noted influence on Christina Rossetti and who was an influential figure in the later phase of the Oxford Movement.

Despite opposition from his own bishop and in his own diocese, Neale was honoured in 1860 with a doctorate in divinity (DD) from Trinity College, Hartford, the second oldest college in Connecticut after Yale University.

His last public act was to lay the foundation of a new convent for the Sisters on Saint Margaret’s Day, 20 July 1865. He died on the Feast of the Transfiguration, 6 August 1866.

His earliest writings were contributions to The Ecclesiologist while he was in Cambridge. In Madeira, he began writing his Commentary on the Psalms, later completed with his friend Dr Littledale and published in four volumes in 1874.

At Sackville College, Neale wrote a five-volume History of the Holy Eastern Church (1847-1873). His other works include biographies of Scottish Episcopal bishops, work on the Scottish Liturgy, a history of the Jansenists in Holland, translations from Greek and Latin, and an account of the legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.

However, he is best remembered today for his hymns and carols. The 1875 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern includes 58 of his translated hymns; the English Hymnal (1906) has 63 of his translated hymns and six original hymns. His carols include ‘Good Christian Men, Rejoice,’ ‘Good King Wenceslas, and ‘O come, O come, Emmanuel.’

The tune always associated with this hymn, Conditor Alme, is a Sarum melody and it has been harmonised for the Irish Church Hymnal by Martin John White, a former organist at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh (1968-2002).

Creator of the starry height by John Mason Neale

Creator of the starry height,
thy people’s everlasting light,
Jesu, redeemer of us all,
hear thou thy servants when they call.

Thou, grieving at the helpless cry
of all creation doomed to die,
didst come to save our fallen race
by healing gifts of heavenly grace.

When earth was near its evening hour,
thou didst, in love’s redeeming pow’r,
like bridegroom from his chamber, come
forth from a virgin-mother’s womb.

At thy great name, exalted now,
all knees in lowly homage bow;
all things in heav’n and earth adore,
and own thee King for evermore.

To thee, O Holy One, we pray,
our judge in that tremendous day,
ward off, while yet we dwell below,
the weapons of our crafty foe.

To God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Spirit, Three in One,
praise, honour, might and glory be
From age to age eternally.

Alternate Third Verse:

Thou cam’st, the bridegroom of the bride,
as drew the world to eventide;
proceeding from a virgin shrine,
the spotless Virgin all divine.

Tomorrow: ‘Lift up your heads, you mighty gates’ (No 131)

It was good to be a ‘Black Santa’ for an afternoon, despite the rain

Collecting with the Verger of Saint Ann’s Fred Deane in Dawson Street this afternoon

Patrick Comerford

I hate asking people for money.

Without any false claims to generosity, I am happy to give to causes I believe in; with what I hope is wise discretion, I am happy to give selectively to people who ask me for money on the streets.

But I hate asking people for money, and I hate asking people for money on the streets.

So, this afternoon, it took a little extra mental energy to hold a bucket and stand in the rain for two or three hours shaking a bucket outside Saint Ann’s Church in Dawson Street.

This has probably been the wettest day in Dublin so far this winter. I have only been wetter this year when I sat on a wet seat on an open-top tour bus in Lisbon one day last month.

I can say the wet and the cold are easier to endure than looking people straight in the face and asking them for money.

But it was all worth while.

I had volunteered to spend the afternoon as part of the team shaking collecting boxes at this year’s Black Santa sit-out at St Ann’s Church to help the city’s homeless.

The sit-in was launched 24 hours earlier by Archbishop Michael Jackson and the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Christy Burke.

This is the 14th year that sit-out appeal has been held at St Ann’s and to date it has raised almost €400,000 for charity. The Black Santa Appeal gets its name because the clergy involved wear black cloaks. The original concept began in 1975 when Dean Samuel Crooks started standing outside Saint Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, at Christmas time. A similar idea was taken up by my dear friend, the late Canon Norman Ruddock, when he became Rector of Wexford 20 years ago.

This afternoon I swapped black cloaks with the Revd Rob Jones from Rathmines as I joined Fred Deane and the carol singers and other collectors outside Saint Ann’s.

I am embarrassed to look at people putting money in the collection boxes, and prefer to look into their faces with a smile and wish them a Merry Christmas.

It is two years since I have taken part in the Black Santa Appeal. But once again I could not avoid being impressed once again to see people rolling up €50, €20 and €10 notes to place in the collecting tins. I was even more impressed to realise that some people were putting in small change, counting out what they could afford and leaving themselves with only enough coins for the bus fare home, or deciding to forgo that cup of coffee they may have planned as treat.

And, in silent moments, I was cheered to hear passing children pointing me out to their parents, remarking on my white beard, and asking (despite the fact that I was covered in black clothing from head to toe): “Is that the real Santa?”

Dawson Street is lined with coffee shops, boutiques and big-name clothes shops. It is one of the most fashionable shopping streets in Dublin. Those who passed by and stopped included a former President, and leading politicians and business figures. But there were cheering waves too from tourists on hop-on, hop –off buses – doubtless as wet as I was that afternoon in Lisbon last month.

And the widows’ (and widowers’) mite is always the most impressive contribution .., indeed, on a cold and wet afternoon, they are the most heart-warming.

The Vicar of Saint Ann’s, Canon David Gillespie has invited his clerical colleagues from in the Dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough to join him outside his city centre church each day from 10 am until 6 pm until Christmas Eve, singing carols and collecting money for homeless charities.

Cheery carol singers at Saint Ann’s Church in Dawson Street this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

At each lunchtime over the coming days, the clergy collecting outside Saint Ann’s are being supported by carol singers from a variety of choirs, including choirs from Castleknock National School, Saint James’s Primary School, Francis Street CBS, Catholic University School, Kildare Place National School, Loreto College, and John Scotus School, as well as members of the Seafield Singers, the Brook Singers, the Dublin Male Voice Choir, the Line Up Choir, Taney Parish Junior Choir, choir, the Revenue Choir and the Steadfast Band.

This year the money collected is being distributed among charities working with the homeless in inner city Dublin, including Trust, the Salvation Army, the Simon Community, the Peter McVerry Trust, Barnardo’s, the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, and Protestant Aid.
This is inner-city street mission finding its best expression in the Church at this time of the year. As I was standing outside Saint Ann’s this afternoon, someone shared on the Affirming Catholicism Facebook page an image from the Orthodox Christian Network with a quotation from Saint Chrysostom: “If you do not find Christ in the beggar at the Church door, neither will you find Him in the chalice.”

But this is not an “either/or” choice – it is a “both/an” imperative for the mission of the Church.

If you still have Christmas shopping to do in Dublin, and you are in the city centre, remember there is still a week to go until Christmas, and call around to Saint Ann’s in Dawson Street. Even a cheery word will raise the morale of my friends and colleagues. And you could make a difference to one homeless person or family this Christmas.

The Christmas scene in a window in Saint Ann’s Church, Dawson Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Hymns for Advent (19): ‘Come, thou long-expected Jesus’ (No 119)

Patrick Comerford

As part of my spiritual reflections for Advent this year, I am looking at an appropriate hymn for Advent each morning. This morning [18 December 2014], on the 307th birthday of Charles Wesley, I have chosen the Advent hymn ‘Come Thou Long Expected Jesus’ by Charles Wesley (Irish Church Hymnal, No 119).

Charles Wesley was born at Epworth Rectory on 18 December 1707, the youngest son and the 18th of 19 children of the Revd Samuel Wesley. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in 1726 and became a college tutor.

He was ordained priest in the Church of England, and in 1735 he went with his brother John Wesley to Georgia as missionaries with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG, later USPG, and now Us).

He returned to England a few months later in 1736, and continued to work closely with his brother. He wrote at least 6,500 hymns, so that he became known as the “Bard of Methodism.”

He strongly disapproved of his brother John’s ordinations, expressing his disapproval in an outspoken manner. He died in London on 29 March 1788, and was buried in Marylebone churchyard. He said: “I have lived, and I die, in the Communion of the Church of England, and I will be buried in the yard of my parish church.”

This hymn was first published anonymously in 1745 as a Christmas rather than an Advent hymn. However, the emphasis in on the coming of Christ as king, and this explains why it is widely used as an Advent hymn today.

‘Come, thou long expected Jesus’ is sung to many tunes, including ‘Jefferson’ by William Walker, ‘Stuttgart’ attributed to Christian Witt, ‘Hyfrydol’ by Rowland Pritchard), and ‘Halton Holgate’ by William Boyce. However, in the Irish Church Hymnal the preferred tune is from The Crucifixion, a well-loved oratorio by Sir John Stainer (1840-1901), which was used when I presided at the Cathedral Eucharist in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, last Sunday [14 December 2014].

Stainer was the first organist of Saint Michael’s College, Tenbury, before becoming the Organist of Magdalen College, Oxford (1860-1872) and then Organist and Master of the Choristers at Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London (1872-1889). Later, he returned to Oxford as Heather Professor of Music (1889-1899). He died in Italy on holiday in 1901.

Come, thou long expected Jesus by John Stainer

Come, thou long expected Jesus,
born to set thy people free;
from our fears and sins release us;
let us find our rest in thee.

Israel’s strength and consolation,
hope of all the earth thou art;
dear desire of every nation,
joy of every longing heart.

Born thy people to deliver,
born a child and yet a king;
born to reign in us for ever,
now thy gracious kingdom bring.

By thine own eternal Spirit,
rule in all our hearts alone:
by thine all-sufficient merit,
raise us to thy glorious throne.

Tomorrow: ‘Creator of the starry height’

Hymns for Advent (18): ‘The Advent Prose – Rorate caeli desuper’ (No 122)

Rorate caeli desuper et nubes pluant justum ... Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One

Patrick Comerford

As part of my spiritual reflections for Advent this year, I am looking at an appropriate hymn for Advent each morning. This morning [17 November 2014], I have chosen the Advent prose, ‘The Advent Prose – Rorate caeli desuper’ (Irish Church Hymnal, No 122).

It is also known as Rorate coeli (or Rorate Caeli) or by the opening words of its English translation, ‘Drop down ye heavens from above’ (see Isaiah 45: 8).

In the Roman Catholic tradition, the Advent Prose is used frequently during Advent as a plainsong at the Mass and in the Divine Office.

It expresses the longings of the Patriarchs and the Prophets, and symbolically of the Church, for the coming of the Messiah. Throughout Advent it occurs daily as the versicle and response after the hymn at Vespers.

℣ Rorate caeli desuper et nubes pluant justum
Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.

℟ Aperiatur terra et germinet salvatorem
Let the earth be opened and send forth a Saviour.

The text is also used as the Introit for the Fourth Sunday in Advent (next Sunday, 21 December 2014), for Wednesday in Ember Week, for the feast of the Expectation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (tomorrow, 18 December), and for votive Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary during Advent.

In the Anglican Communion, Rorate Coeli is included in the music for Advent (see English Hymnal (1906), No 735; New English Hymnal, No 501, and Irish Church Hymnal, No 122).

The Advent Prose came into use in the 17th century, and draws on the prophecy of Isaiah, and a Latin text with a French translation was first published in Paris in 1673.

The version in the English Hymnal, the New English Hymnal and the Irish Church Hymnal omits the original but obscure third verse based on Isaiah 16: 1:

Behold, O Lord, the affliction of thy people
and send forth him who is to come:
send forth the Lamb, the ruler of the earth,
from the rock of the desert, to the mount of the daughter of Zion:
that he may take away the yoke of our captivity.

The editors replaced this with another verse drawn from Isaiah 40: 10-11.

The Advent Prose – Rorate caeli desuper (No 122)

Refrain:

Drop down, ye heavens, from above,
and let the skies pour down righteousness.

Be not wroth very sore, O Lord,
neither remember iniquity for ever:
the holy cities are a wilderness,
Sion is a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation:
our holy and our beautiful house,
where our fathers praised thee.

We have sinned, and are as an unclean thing,
and we all do fade as a leaf:
and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away;
thou hast hid thy face from us:
and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.

Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord,
and my servant whom I have chosen;
that ye may know me and believe me:
I, even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no Saviour:
and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people,
my salvation shall not tarry:
I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions:
Fear not, for I will save thee:
for I am the Lord thy God,
the Holy One of Israel, thy Redeemer.

Tomorrow: ‘Come, thou long-expected Jesus’

Hymns for Advent (17): ‘Hark, what a sound, and too divine for hearing’ (No 127)

Trinity College Cambridge ... FWH Myers wrote ‘Hark, what a sound, and too divine for hearing’ when he was a Fellow from 1865 to 1874 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford 2014)

Patrick Comerford

As part of my spiritual reflections for Advent this year, I am looking at an appropriate hymn for Advent each morning. This morning [16 November 2014], I have chosen the Advent hymn ‘Hark, what a sound, and too divine for hearing’ by Frederic William Henry Myers (1843-1901).

Myers was the son of the Revd Frederic Myers (1811-1851), once a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and a brother of the poet Ernest Myers (1844-1921). Myers was only seven when his father died in Clifron, Cumberland, and he was taken to live first in Blackheath and then in Cheltenham, where he attended Cheltenham College. While still a schoolboy, he showed a great aptitude for poetry, winning school prizes and coming second in a national competition for a Robert Burns centenary poem.

Myers went on to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was outstanding student. He was Bell Scholar in 1861, Craven Scholar in 1863, Chancellor’s English Medallist 1861 and 1863, Camden Medallist 1862 and Members’ Prizeman 1863, 1864 and 1865, although he was forced to resign the Camden medal for 1863 after accusations of plagiarism.

He graduated BA in 1864 as 2nd Classic joint with the future theologian and Bishop of Durham, HCG Moule (1841-1920), and later that year he took a first in the Moral Sciences Tripos.

Myers was elected a Fellow of Trinity in 1865, along with his friend Moule, and he remained a Fellow until 1874, a year after Moule became Dean of Trinity College. He also held the posts of assistant tutor and college lecturer in classics until 1869. However, he did not feel suited to teaching, and in 1872 he became an inspector of schools, a post he held until shortly before his death.

In 1880, Myers married Eveleen Tennant (1856-1937), daughter of Charles Tennant and a sister of Dorothy Tennant (1855-1926), who married the explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1901), famed for asking: “Dr Livingstone, I presume?” From 1881, Eveleen and Frederick Myers lived at Leckhampton House on Grange Road, Cambridge. Their eldest son, Leopold Hamilton Myers (1881-1944) became a poet and novelist.

FWH Myers died in Rome on 17 January 1901. His papers were given to the Library of Trinity College Cambridge in 1970 by his granddaughter, th painter and textile designed Mrs EQ (Elsie Queen) Nicholson (1908-1992).

Some regard Myers as an “important early depth psychologist,” and say he had a significant influence on the wok of people like William James and Carl Jung. But his early life – marked by numerous sexual liaisons, and his later life – marked by his interest in psychic research and spiritualism and his use of mediums, make him an unexpected and untypical writer of a devotional Advent hymn.

By 1869, Myers, like many of his Cambridge intellectual contemporaries, had lost his faith, but wrote that his agnosticism affected him like “a dull pain borne with joyless doggedness, sometimes a shock of nightmare panic amid the glaring dreaminess of the day.” He felt that his hope and the hope of the world was vanishing.

When he recovered his beliefs later in life they found a very different expression. Dr Charles Richet, the Nobel laureate in medicine, wrote: “If Myers was not a mystic, he had all the faith of a mystic and the ardour of an apostle, in conjunction with the sagacity and precision of a savant.”

However, this hymn is part of a long poem, Saint Paul, published by Myers in 1867, while he was still a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. It soon became very popular, and was followed in 1882 by The Renewal of Youth and Other Poems. He also wrote books of literary criticism, in particular Wordsworth (1881) and Essays, Classical and Modern (in two volumes, 1883), which included a highly-regarded essay on Virgil.

Myers’s long poem Saint Paul was written while he was a student and submitted for the Seatonian verse competition in Cambridge. It ran to a full 150 stanzas and was based on II Corinthians 12: 9: “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee.”

The poem failed to win the prize, but Myers had it published in 1867. It ends with the verses that have been adapted as the last three stanzas of this Advent hymn. The first stanza is not part of the original poem, and may not have been written by Myers.

This hymn, describing Christ’s second coming as spoken of in the closing chapter of the Book of Revelation, reveals Myers’s spirituality at the time, and contains the promise of the return and the gathering up of all things in Christ. It tingles with excitement as it expresses all the longing, all the expectancy, all the trust and all the waiting of Advent. This is a hymn not about watching but about listening ... listening for sounds beyond the mortal spectrum. The last verse breaks through the sorrows, fears and sin of the past and the present that gets in the way of looking to the future and the hope of the Second Coming of Christ:

Yea, through life, death, through sorrow and through sinning,
he shall suffice me, for he hath sufficèd:
Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning,
Christ the beginning, for the end is Christ.

Westminster Cathedral, where Sir Richard Runciman Terry was organist and first Director of Music (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The tune Highwood was written by Sir Richard Runciman Terry (1865-1938). Terry was an organ scholar at Oxford, and then a choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge. He became a Roman Catholic in 1896, and was the Music Master at Downside School before being appointed the organist and the first Director of Music at Westminster Cathedral. In the early 20th century, Terry made an impressive contribution to the music of the Roman Catholic Church in England.and first wrote this tune for the wedding hymn ‘O perfect love, all human thought transcending’ at the suggestion of his uncle, Lord Runciman. The tune is named after a wood on Lord Runciman’s estate at Doxford, seven miles north of Alnwick in Northumberland.

Highwood is a sweeping melody, soaring upwards, and then falling back to earth with a sigh. The setting of Myers’s words has been very successful, with exultation in the words taken up in the music.

Hark, what a sound, and too divine for hearing, by Frederick WH Myers

Hark, what a sound, and too divine for hearing,
stirs on the earth and trembles in the air!
Is it the thunder of the Lord’s appearing?
Is it the music of his people’s prayer?

Surely he cometh, and a thousand voices
shout to the saints and to the deaf are dumb;
surely he cometh, and the earth rejoices,
glad in his coming who hath sworn, ‘I come’.

This hath he done, and shall we not adore him?
This shall he do, and can we still despair?
Come let us quickly fling ourselves before him,
cast at his feet the burden of our care.

Yea, through life, death, through sorrow and through sinning
he shall suffice me, for he hath sufficèd:
Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning,
Christ the beginning, for the end is Christ.

Tomorrow: ‘The Advent Prose – Rorate caeli desuper’

Hymns for Advent (16): ‘Hark! a thrilling voice is sounding’ (No 126)

‘Christ, her Sun, all ill dispelling / shines upon the morning skies’ … a recent sunrise in Knocklyon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

As part of my spiritual reflections for Advent this year, I am looking at an appropriate hymn for Advent each morning. This morning [15 November 2014], I have chosen the Advent hymn ‘Hark! a thrilling voice is sounding,’ translated from the original Latin in 1849 by Edward Caswall (Irish Church Hymnal, No 126).

Traditionally, this ancient Latin hymn has been attributed to Saint Ambrose, but it is more likely that it was written by one of his followers. It made its way into many of the Anglo-Saxon brevaries, and was appointed for use at Matins or Lauds each day throughout Advent.

Edward Caswall (1814-1878) was born on 15 July 1814 in Yateley, Hampshire, the son of the Revd Robert Clarke Caswall, Vicar of Yateley, and nephew of Thomas Burgess (1756-1837), Bishop of Salisbury. He attended Chigwell Grammar School, Marlborough School, and Brasenose College, Oxford, where he graduated with an honours BA in 1836, later proceeding MA. Before leaving Oxford, he published, under the pseudonym of Scriblerus Redivivus, The Art of Pluck, written in imitation of the style of Aristotle and a satire on the ways of the careless college student.

Caswall was ordained as a deacon in 1838 and a priest in 1839 in the Church of England. In 1840 he was appointed the Perpetual Curate or vicar of Stratford-sub-Castle near Salisbury. Soon afterwards, he came under the influence of John Henry Newman and the Tracts for the Times. He resigned his position in the Church of England, and in January 1847, was received into the Roman Catholic Church in Rome by Cardinal Acton.

Caswall’s wife, who had become a Roman Catholic with him, died suddenly of cholera in 1849. Within a year, he became an Oratorian and joined Newman at the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri at Edgbaston, near Birmingham. He was ordained priest in 1852 in the Roman Catholic Church, and until his death he lived at the Oratory, where he wrote most of his hymns.

Today, Caswall is best remembered as the translator of ancient hymns, although he also wrote original lyrics. Many of his translations are from the Roman Breviary and other Latin sources, marked by faithfulness to the original and by purity of rhythm. His works include: Sermons on the Seen and the Unseen (1846); Lyra Catholica (1849); The Masque of Mary, and Other Poems (1858); and The Catholic’s Latin Instructor in the Principal Church Offices and Devotions.

Caswall died in the Oratory, Edgbaston, on 2 January 1878 and is buried in Rednal, near Bromsgrove, close to John Henry Newman.

Caswall’s original opening line for this hymn in Lyra Catholica was: “Hark, an awful voice is sounding.” But this was changed when it was published in a hymnal in 1852.

The tune ‘Merton’ was composed by William Henry Monk (1823-1889), best known for ‘Eventide,’ which is used for the hymn ‘Abide with Me’ by Henry Francis Lyte.

Monk was born in London on 16 March 1823 and was the organist in a number of London churches before becoming choirmaster at King’s College, London. There he developed an interest in incorporating plainchant into Anglican services, an idea suggested by William Dyce, a professor at King’s College. In 1849, Monk also became the organist at King’s College. In addition, for almost four decades, he was the organist and music director at Saint Matthias’ Church, Stoke Newington, where he established a daily choral service with a voluntary choir.

Monk’s talents as a composer, arranger, and editor were recognised in 1857, when he was appointed the first musical editor of Hymns Ancient and Modern.

Thomas Hardy wrote of Monk’s editing of Hymns Ancient and Modern:

Stripped of some of your vesture
By Monk or another. Now you wore no frill,
And at first you startled me. But I know you still,
Though I missed the minim’s waver

In 1874, Monk was appointed Professor of Vocal Studies at King’s College. Later, he accepted similar posts at two other prestigious music schools in London, the National Training School for Music (1876) and Bedford College (1878). He remained active in composition in his later years, writing not only hymn tunes but also anthems and other works. In 1882 Durham University awarded him an honorary doctorate.

Monk died in London on 1 March 1889, and he is buried in Highgate Cemetery, near Christina Rossetti and many other famous Victorians.

Merton College, Oxford ... the tune ‘Merton’ was written for ‘Hark! a thrilling voice is sounding’ by William Henry Monk (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Hark! a thrilling voice is sounding by Edward Caswall

Hark! a thrilling voice is sounding,
‘Christ is nigh,’ it seems to say;
‘Cast away the works of darkness,
O ye children of the day!’

Wakened by the solemn warning,
let the earthbound soul arise;
Christ, her Sun, all ill dispelling,
shines upon the morning skies.

Lo! the Lamb, so long expected,
comes with pardon down from heaven:
let us haste, with tears of sorrow,
one and all to be forgiven;

that when next he comes in glory,
and the world is wrapped in fear,
with his mercy he may shield us,
and with words of love draw near.

Honour, glory, might and blessing
to the Father and Son,
with the everlasting Spirit,
while eternal ages run.

Tomorrow: Hark, what a sound, and too divine for hearing