Mary and Holy Week Music
Holy Week greetings to all of you in our St. Thomas-Epiphany community. I am so missing seeing (and hearing!) you all on Sunday mornings. I will be offering some thoughts on our rich treasure of sacred music, accompanied by recordings from our members to help aid your home meditations and worship.
St. Augustine (354-430 AD), a Roman African and Bishop of Hippo in what is now Algeria, is credited with the quotation, “He who sings, prays twice.” Many of us can resonate with this sentiment, as the combination of meaningful sacred texts with music can transport us to deeper realms of worship.
We have an incredible legacy of hymn texts and tunes, dating back over two thousand years. If you have a hymnal at home, I encourage to use the texts devotionally. Sometimes we are so familiar with a tune for a hymn that we don’t always ponder the text on its own. I commend this practice to you! The Episcopal Church has five authorized hymnals for use in worship, and we will look at offerings from each.
O God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
our shelter from the stormy blast,
and our eternal home.
(Hymn 680 in the Hymnal 1982)
This paraphrase of Psalm 90 from the great hymn writer (over 600!) Isaac Watts (1674-1748) still rings true today, and is a favorite of many, often chosen at times of grief and trouble. It immediately brings to mind the familiar tune composed by William Croft (1678-1727), who was then organist at St. Anne’s Church in Soho (London). They are glued together in our memories, but this is not always the case. Many hymn texts have numerous tunes associated with them.
Today I offer to you the hymn My song is love unknown, (#458 in the Hymnal 1982), whose beautiful poem by Samuel Crossman (1624-1683) did not meet its current tune by John Ireland (1879-1962) until the 20th century. This text is especially meaningful during Holy Week, and as I am writing this on Palm Sunday, it has been resonating with me all day. Do have a listen to the attached recording of our choir singing this as an anthem, with the entire congregation coming in for the last verse. I hope it helps you as you meditate on Christ’s love for us during this Holy Week 2020. Here is the text:
My song is love unknown, my Savior’s love to me,
Love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be.
O who am I that for my sake
My Lord should take frail flesh and die?
He came from his blest throne salvation to bestow,
But men made strange, and none the longed for Christ would know.
But O my friend, my friend indeed,
Who at my need his life did spend.
Sometimes they strew his way, and his strong praises sing,
Resounding all the day hosannas to their King.
Then “Crucify!” is all their breath,
And for his death they thirst and cry.
Why, what hath my Lord done? What makes this rage and spite?
He made the lame to run, he gave the blind their sight.
Sweet injuries! Yet they at these
Themselves displease, and ‘gainst him rise.
They rise, and needs will have my dear Lord made away;
A murderer they save, the Prince of Life they slay.
Yet steadfast he to suffering goes,
That he his foes from thence might free.
In life no house, no home my Lord on earth might have;
In death no friendly tomb but what a stranger gave.
What may I say? Heaven was his home;
But mine the tomb wherein he lay.
Here might I stay and sing, no story so divine:
Never was love, dear King, never was grief like thine.
This is my friend, in whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend.
I did not know this hymn when I was growing up, even though I am a cradle Episcopalian. I first heard it in Paris, France where I spent a year studying organ after I graduated from college. I had been spending most Sundays during my year there going to various Parisian churches hearing famous organists of the day playing for Catholic masses, which I could not receive in. On Palm Sunday, hungry for the Eucharist, my Episcopal roots, and native tongue, I went for the first time to St. George’s Anglican Church, which that year was worshiping in a Roman Catholic convent Chapel, because their building was being repaired. This hymn was sung at that service, and I will never forget how moved I was by it at that time in my life.
Feel free to email me some of your favorite hymns! I would love to know what speaks to you, our parishioners at St. Thomas-Epiphany! You can reach me at mary@steepmd.org
During this difficult time for our world as we practice physical distancing to keep one another safe from the ravages of Covid 19, I hope that sacred music can bring comfort, healing and inspiration to each of you.
