Each week, you may find information here about the music in the traditional worship services at First United Methodist Church in Lewisville, Texas. Some of this information is original; most of it is copied from other websites such as Wikipedia, GBOD, and hymnary.org. It is my hope that this information will enhance your understanding and enrich your worship experience.
About the Organ Music:
You Satisfy the Hungry Heart - Ron Schmoltze
(c.2004, Augsburg Fortress)
This hymn unites the work of composer, Robert Kreutz, and hymn text writer, Omer Westendorf. It was among 200 texts submitted for possible use at the 41st International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia in 1976. "You Satisfy the Hungry Heart" was selected as the official hymn of that gathering. First embraced by Roman Catholics, this hymn has since become well-known and a favorite in many denominations. Following the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the role of congregational song became much more prominent in Roman Catholic worship. The ecumenical worshipping community has been the beneficiary of some music composed for Catholic worship since that time, especially music for Communion. We would not have some of our favorite Communion hymns in The United Methodist Hymnal and The Faith We Sing without the contribution of post-Vatican II Catholic composers. “One bread, one body” (UMH No. 620) and “Take our bread” (UMH No. 640) are just a two of these.
Omer Westendorf (1916-1997) was one of the leading post-Vatican II composers and his hymn, “Gift of finest wheat,” is one of the best-known Communion hymns to come from the decades immediately following the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council. This hymn unites the work of composer, Robert Kreutz, and hymn text writer, Omer Westendorf. It was among 200 texts submitted for possible use at the 41st International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia in 1976. "You Satisfy the Hungry Heart" was selected as the official hymn of that gathering. The hymn was first published in We Celebrate with Song (1979).
Beginning at age 20, Westendorf received his master of music degree at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and for most of his professional musical career served as organist and choirmaster at St. Bonaventure Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Under his direction, the Bonaventure Choir sang concerts and recorded sacred music for several decades. One of his greatest achievements was the founding of the World Library of Sacred Music in 1950 and World Library Publications in 1957. These organizations have been primary distributors of music for the Mass in the U.S. and beyond. Westendorf was also known for his lectures and seminars on sacred music, consultations on liturgical music, and as a hymn writer. UM Hymnal editor Carlton Young notes that Westendorf’s “People’s Mass Book, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1976, was the first vernacular hymn and service book to implement the Catholic liturgies decreed by Vatican Council II. He wrote Music Lessons for the Man in the Pew to teach the art of sight reading choral music.”
One of the prominent features of Catholic hymns from this era is a memorable and singable refrain. For example, think of how easily congregations learn the refrain by Catholic musician Daniel Schutte, “Here I Am, Lord.” “You satisfy the hungry heart” has an equally memorable refrain, though more reflective. The refrain evokes the agrarian image of “finest wheat,” the source of bread, a primary staple that sustains life. The hymn writer first addresses Christ directly in the second person, implying an intimate relationship, and offers a petition to Christ to “give to us... the bread of life to eat.”
The hymn is replete with biblical references. The refrain echoes John 6:25-37, a passage where Christ develops the imagery of bread and says, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger.” Stanza one focuses on the metaphor of Christ as shepherd drawn from several passages, but especially from John 10. Stanza three is almost a direct quotation of I Corinthians 10:16-17: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ. The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” The final stanza sites the selfless and self-giving gift of Christ reminding us of Philippians 2:5-11, a creedal hymn of the early church.
You satisfy the hungry heart with gift of finest wheat.
Come give to us, O saving Lord, the bread of life to eat.
As when the shepherd calls his sheep, they know and heed his voice;
so when you call your family, Lord, we follow and rejoice.
With joyful lips we sing to you our praise and gratitude
that you should count us worthy, Lord, to share this heavenly food.
Is not the cup we bless and share the blood of Christ outpoured?
Do not one cup, one loaf, declare our oneness in the Lord?
The mystery of your presence, Lord, no mortal tongue can tell:
whom all the world cannot contain comes in our hearts to dwell.
You give yourself to us, O Lord; then selfless let us be,
to serve each other in your name in truth and charity.
Ronald L. Schmoltze (1937-2018) was an Air Force Veteran of the Korean Conflict. He received his Bachelor of Music Degree from Oberlin College and choir and musical theater in middle schools and high schools. in the Passaic NJ area. He was music director/organist at St. Coleman Church in Pompano Beach, FL, and Our Lady of Angles Catholic Church in Burlingame, CA. He was a member of the American Guild of Organist and has had two published volumes of Organ Preludes.
Song 1 - Eric Thiamin
(c.1956, Oxford University Press)
William Turton was the son of an army officer and born in India. He was educated at Clifton College before joining the Royal Military Academy. He was commissioned in 1876 as a Royal Engineer lieutenant and retired in 1905. Turton is probably best remembered as the author of The Plantagenet Ancestry. Other published works include Hymns Written by a Layman Between the Festivals of All Saints, 1880 & 1881 (which contained the hymn “ 0 Thou who at Thy Eucharist didst pray ”), The Truth of Christianity and The Marine Shells of Port Alfred.
“0 Thou who at Thy Eucharist didst pray ” by William Harry Turton (1856 -1938) is set to the hymn tune SONG 1. This hymn was used at S. Mary Magdalene's, Munster Square, N. W., in the Anniversary Service of the English Church Union, June 22,1881.
The hymn tune SONG 1 was written by Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625), an English composer, virginalist and organist of the late Tudor and early Jacobean periods. He was a leading composer in the England of his day. Gibbons entered the university in 1598 and achieved the degree of Bachelor of Music in 1606. James I appointed him a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, where he served as an organist from at least 1615 until his death. In 1623 he became senior organist at the Chapel Royal, with Thomas Tomkins as junior organist. He also held positions as keyboard player in the privy chamber of the court of Prince Charles (later King Charles I), and organist at Westminster Abbey. One of the most versatile English composers of his time, Gibbons wrote a quantity of keyboard works, around thirty fantasias for viols, a number of madrigals (the best-known being "The Silver Swan"), and many popular verse anthems. His choral music is distinguished by his complete mastery of counterpoint, combined with his wonderful gift for melody. Perhaps his most well known verse anthem is “This is the record of John”, which sets an Advent text for solo countertenor or tenor, alternating with full chorus. The soloist is required to demonstrate considerable technical facility at points, and the work at once expresses the rhetorical force of the text, whilst never being demonstrative or bombastic. He also produced two major settings of Evensong, the Short Service and the Second Service. The former includes a beautifully expressive Nunc dimittis, while the latter is an extended composition, combining verse and full sections. Gibbons's full anthems include the expressive “O Lord, in thy wrath”, and the Ascension Day anthem “O clap your hands together” for eight voices. He contributed six pieces to the first printed collection of keyboard music in England, Parthenia (to which he was by far the youngest of the three contributors), published in about 1611. Gibbons's surviving keyboard output comprises some 45 pieces. The polyphonic fantasia and dance forms are the best represented genres. Gibbons's writing exhibits full mastery of three- and four-part counterpoint. Most of the fantasias are complex, multisectional pieces, treating multiple subjects imitatively. Gibbons's approach to melody in both fantasias and dances features a capability for almost limitless development of simple musical ideas, on display in works such as Pavane in D minor and Lord Salisbury's Pavan and Galliard.
O thou, who at thy Eucharist didst pray
that all thy Church might be for ever one,
grant us at every Eucharist to say
with longing heart and soul, ‘Thy will be done:’
O may we all one bread, one body be,
through this blest sacrament of unity.
For all thy Church, O Lord, we intercede;
make thou our sad divisions soon to cease;
draw us the nearer each to each, we plead,
by drawing all to thee, O Prince of peace:
thus may we all one bread, one body be,
through this blest sacrament of unity.
We pray thee too for wanderers from thy fold;
O bring them back, good Shepherd of the sheep,
back to the faith which saints believed of old,
back to the Church which still that faith doth keep:
soon may we all one bread, one body be,
through this blest sacrament of unity.
So, Lord, at length when sacraments shall cease,
may we be one with all thy Church above,
one with thy saints in one unbroken peace,
one with thy saints in one unbounded love:
more blessèd still, in peace and love to be
one with the Trinity in Unity.
Eric Harding Thiman (1900 – 1975) was an English composer and organist.Largely self-taught, he was awarded an FRCO in 1921. From 1930 he was Professor of Harmony at the Royal Academy of Music and later, from 1956 to 1962, was Dean of the Faculty of Music at the University of London. From 1958, having moved from Park Chapel (a Congregational Church in Crouch End, later to join with Ferme Park Baptist Church to form a Union Church in the same district, he was organist of the City Temple in London, a Congregational Church where he increased his renown as an improviser of great skill. He was a keen advocate of amateur music-making and in the 1960s was the conductor and Musical Director of the Purley Choral Society. A prolific composer of small-scale works, he wrote much educational music for piano and other instruments, as well as accessible music for church choirs
About the Piano Music:
Let Us Break Bread Together - Mark Hayes
(c.2018, Lorenz Publishing)
This spiritual was formed in the West African Gullah/Geechee slave culture that developed in the costal areas of South-Eastern colonial America, including St Helena Island, Beaufort, and Charleston, South Carolina. The text of the version that is commonly sung in the United States was first published in The Journal of American Folklore (1925). The Journal included spirituals, as well as African American folk tales and proverbs that were collected by students at the Penn School on Saint Helena Island, South Carolina. A second version appeared in Saint Helena Island Spirituals (1925) by Nicholas Ballanta, a very significant collection that included 103 Gullah spirituals.
Some of the stanzas of this African American spiritual may date back to the eighteenth century. Other stanzas have been added by oral tradition. A look through modern hymnals will reveal an array of variations on the text. The most notable alteration in the Psalter Hymnal is the phrase "to the Lord of life" in place of the original "to the rising sun," in which "rising sun" was a metaphor referring to the Son rising. The song's use at communion services probably dates from after the American Civil War. Miles Mark Fisher notes in Negro Slave Songs in the United States (1953): [Originally the hymn] relates hardly at all to holy communion, which does not necessarily require early morning administration or a devotee who faces east. It was a signal song of Virginia slaves during the eighteenth century who used it and similar ones to convene their secret meetings.
The text describes participation in the Lord's Supper as a humble act in which we not only eat the bread and drink the wine, but also praise our God "on our knees." The refrain ends with a prayer for mercy, an African-American Kyrie that reminds us of the tax collector's prayer in Luke 18:13.
African American composer John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954) arranged the first solo version with the three stanzas that are common to most hymnals in the United States. He also established the precedent of singing the final stanza up the octave. This practice is observed in several hymnals including The United Methodist Hymnal. This version of the spiritual was popularized by notable African American soloists in the mid-twentieth century such as Paul Robeson, Roland Hayes, and Marian Anderson.
Let us break bread together on our knees, let us break bread together on our knees.
When I fall on my knees with my face to the rising sun, O Lord, have mercy on me.
Let us drink wine together on our knees, let us drink wine together on our knees.
When I fall on my knees with my face to the rising sun, O Lord, have mercy on me.
Let us praise God together on our knees, let us praise God together on our knees.
When I fall on my knees with my face to the rising sun, O Lord, have mercy on me.
Mark Hayes is an award-winning concert pianist, composer, arranger and conductor. His personal catalog, totaling over 1,000 published works, includes work for solo voice, solo piano, multiple pianos, orchestra, jazz combo, small instrumental ensembles, and choruses of all kinds. Mark received a Bachelor of Music degree summa cum laude in Piano Performance from Baylor University in 1975. He has conducted the SWACDA and MCDA Community and Church Honor Choir, and served as guest conductor at Carnegie Hall, featuring his Te Deum and Magnificat. In 2010, Baylor University Center for Christian Music Studies awarded Mark the Award for Exemplary Leadership in Christian Music. Mark arranged and orchestrated the music for Civil War Voices, which won six awards including "Best Musical" in the 2010 Midtown International Theatre Festival in New York. He conducted the world premiere of his work for chorus, orchestra and narrator, The American Spirit, at Lincoln Center in May 2011 and the world premiere of his Requiem in Lincoln Center in May 2013. Whether concertizing on the other side of the globe or composing at his home in Kansas City, Missouri, Mark is blessed to live out his mission "to create beautiful music for the world".
About the Choral Music:
Humbly I Adore Thee - Robert Powell
(c.2005, St. James Music Press)
Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was an Italian Dominican friar, Catholic priest, and Doctor of the Church. He was an immensely influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism, within which he is also known as the Doctor Angelicus and the Doctor Communis. The name Aquinas identifies his ancestral origins in the county of Aquino in present-day Lazio, Italy.
He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology and the father of Thomism; of which he argued that reason is found in God. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern philosophy developed or opposed his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory. Unlike many currents in the Church of the time, Thomas embraced several ideas put forward by Aristotle—whom he called "the Philosopher"—and attempted to synthesize Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity. His best-known works are the Disputed Questions on Truth (1256–59), the Summa contra Gentiles (1259–65), and the Summa Theologiae (1265–74). His commentaries on Scripture and on Aristotle also form an important part of his body of work. Furthermore, Thomas is distinguished for his eucharistic hymns, which form a part of the Church's liturgy.
At the age of five, Thomas began his early education at Monte Cassino but after the military conflict between the Emperor Frederick II and Pope Gregory IX spilled into the abbey in early 1239, Landulf and Theodora had Thomas enrolled at the studium generale (university) recently established by Frederick in Naples. It was here that Thomas was probably introduced to Aristotle, Averroes and Maimonides, all of whom would influence his theological philosophy. It was also during his study at Naples that Thomas came under the influence of John of St. Julian, a Dominican preacher in Naples, who was part of the active effort by the Dominican order to recruit devout followers. There his teacher in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music was Petrus de Ibernia.
At the age of nineteen Thomas resolved to join the recently founded Dominican Order. Thomas’s decision did not please his family. In an attempt to prevent Theodora's interference in Thomas's choice, the Dominicans arranged to move Thomas to Rome, and from Rome, to Paris. However, while on his journey to Rome, per Theodora's instructions, his brothers seized him as he was drinking from a spring and took him back to his parents at the castle of Monte San Giovanni Campano. Thomas was held prisoner for almost one year in the family castles at Monte San Giovanni and Roccasecca in an attempt to prevent him from assuming the Dominican habit and to push him into renouncing his new aspiration. Political concerns prevented the Pope from ordering Thomas's release, which had the effect of extending Thomas's detention. Thomas passed this time of trial tutoring his sisters and communicating with members of the Dominican Order. Family members became desperate to dissuade Thomas, who remained determined to join the Dominicans. At one point, two of his brothers resorted to the measure of hiring a prostitute to seduce him. According to legend, Thomas drove her away wielding a fire iron and two angels appeared to him as he slept and strengthened his determination to remain celibate. By 1244, seeing that all of her attempts to dissuade Thomas had failed, Theodora sought to save the family's dignity, arranging for Thomas to escape at night through his window. In her mind, a secret escape from detention was less damaging than an open surrender to the Dominicans. Thomas was sent first to Naples and then to Rome to meet Johannes von Wildeshausen, the Master General of the Dominican Order.
The Catholic Church honors Thomas Aquinas as a saint and regards him as the model teacher for those studying for the priesthood, and indeed the highest expression of both natural reason and speculative theology. In modern times, under papal directives, the study of his works was long used as a core of the required program of study for those seeking ordination as priests or deacons, as well as for those in religious formation and for other students of the sacred disciplines (philosophy, Catholic theology, church history, liturgy, and canon law).
Thomas Aquinas is considered one of the Catholic Church's greatest theologians and philosophers. Pope Benedict XV declared: "This (Dominican) Order ... acquired new luster when the Church declared the teaching of Thomas to be her own and that Doctor, honored with the special praises of the Pontiffs, the master and patron of Catholic schools.” The English philosopher Anthony Kenny considers Thomas to be "one of the dozen greatest philosophers of the western world".
"Adoro te devote" is one of the five Eucharistic hymns, which Aquinas composed and set to music for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, instituted in 1264 by Pope Urban IV as a Solemnity for the entire Roman Catholic Church. Since the beginning of its composition and it being set to music, the "Adoro te devote" was chanted as an Eucharistic Hymn during the Saint Mass in honorem SS. Sacramenti (in honour of the Most Blessed Sacrament), as it was written in the Latin manuscripts. So it was also chanted for the Eucharistic adoration. Aquinas seems to have used it also as a private prayer, for a daily adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The "Adoro te devote" is one of the medieval poetic compositions, being used as spoken prayers and also as chanted hymns, which were preserved in the Missale Romanum published in 1570 following the Council of Trent (1545–1563).
This chant has been set for choir in English by Robert Powell (b. 1932), an American composer, organist, and choir director. Powell earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Louisiana State University with a focus on organ and composition. He studied with Alec Wyton at Union Theological Seminary in New York, and he was also Wyton's assistant at The Episcopal Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. For three years (1965–1968), he served St. Paul's School (Concord, New Hampshire) as Director of Music. Later, Powell was Director of Music and Organist of Christ Church (Episcopal) of Greenville, South Carolina from 1968 to 2003. He has composed in nearly all genres common to church music, including anthems, service music, hymn concertatos, organ music, music for handbell choir, and large-scale oratorios. Powell's conservative, neo-Romantic style stems from his practical approach to composition. According to Powell himself, he writes for "choirs of twenty-five because that's what most choirs are. When you come right down to it, most choirs are not of cathedral ability or size. My pieces are all practical things and useful for specific occasions." His publications appear in The Hymnal 1982 as well as in the catalogs of most of the significant American publishers of church music. According to publisher GIA, Powell is "a composer whose output bridges denominational boundaries and who is able to serve the larger Church. He has made ecumenical sharing a reality–-and always with a genteel touch." Powell is an active member of the Association of Anglican Musicians and is a Fellow of the American Guild of Organists.
Humbly I adore thee, Verity unseen,
Who thy glory hidest ‘neath these shadows mean;
lo, to thee surrendered, my whole heart is bowed,
tranced as it beholds thee shrined within the cloud;
Taste and touch and vision to discern thee fail;
faith, that comes by hearing pierces through the veil.
I believe whate’re the Son of God hath told;
what the Truth hath spoken, that for truth I hold.
O memorial wondrous of the Lord’s own death;
living Bread that givest all thy creatures breath,
grant my spirit ever by they life my live,
to my taste thy sweetness never failing give.
Jesus whom now hidden I by faith behold,
what my soul doth long, for that thy word foretold.
Face to face, thy splendor, I at last shall see,
in the glorious vision, blessed Lord of thee. Amen.
God as We Leave This Place - Jim Strathdee
(c.1994, Desert Flower Music)
Internationally known artists, Jim and Jean Strathdee sing with thousands of people each year as they offer their music in concerts, worship, conferences, reteats, and workshops. Most often they travel throughout the United States and Canada, but over the 40 year span of their ministry they have shared their music in India, New Zealand, Cuba, and Central America. Their music spans a diversity of sound and style and includes use of guitar, piano, mandolin, harmonica, African drums, and Native American flute. They see music as an agent of transformation where ecumenical and inter-faith communities come together to make a stand for positive change. Jim and Jean have served on the staff of United Methodist churches in southern and northern California and Hawaii. They have written hundreds of hymns, songs, and anthems.
God as we leave this place together,
Strengthened by prayer, refreshed by song,
Help us to walk with one another
When the road is weary and long.
God as we journey through the wilderness,
Longing to reach the promised land,
We are restored to grace and freedom
Led by your strong and loving hand.
About the Hymns:
God is Here
(c.1979, Hope Publishing)
Born in England and ordained a Methodist minister, Rev. Pratt Green wrote numerous plays and hymns. His hymns reflect his rejection of fundamentalism and show his concern with social issues. They also include many works that were written to supply obvious liturgical needs of the modern church, speaking to topics or appropriate for events for which there were few traditional hymns available. As well as writing his own hymns, Green produced translations, notably translating one of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s late poems as the hymn, "By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered.”
In the first three words of the hymn, "God Is Here," we acknowledge something that so often we forget—God is here in worship and calls us first. We thank God for the gifts in the church, through Christ, and remember together that we bring thanks to God for the “varied skills and arts” as we invoke the “coming of the Spirit” into “open minds and hearts.” Rev. Pratt Green proclaims the essence of our faith in the last words, “We believe!”
Pratt Green wrote this text early in 1978 in Norwich, England. Russell Schulz-Widmar had requested that Pratt Green write a hymn text to be sung at the closing service of an eight-month festival on worship, music, and the arts, held at the University United Methodist Church in Austin, Texas. In that service on April 30, 1978, the church dedicated its new chancel furniture, and the people rededicated themselves to God. The text was first published in the British/Methodist supplementary volume Partners in Praise (1979).
"God Is Here" helps us celebrate what it means to be a church: to offer praise and prayer to God with "all our varied skills and arts", to preach the Word and participate in the sacraments, to foster faith and service, and to live lives ill "church and kingdom" that bring glory to our Lord. This text presents a catalog of the central tasks of the church and emphasizes the relationship between Sunday worship and daily living.
Cyril V. Taylor (1907-1991) composed ABBOT'S LEIGH in May of 1941 when he was working for the Religious Broadcasting Department of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The BBC had received complaints about the use of AUSTRIA (tune for the Austrian national hymn) during this time of war, a tune then set to "Glorious Things of You Are Spoken". Thus Taylor originally composed his tune for that text. First printed in a leaflet, ABBOT'S LEIGH was published in Hymns Ancient and Modern Revised (1950), Congregational Praise (1951), and the BBC Hymn Book (1951), of which Taylor was editor. ABBOT'S LEIGH is named for a village near Bristol, England, where Taylor composed the tune.
God is here! As we your people meet to offer praise and prayer,
may we find in fuller measure what it is in Christ we share.
Here, as in the world around us, all our varied skills and arts
wait the coming of the Spirit into open minds and hearts.
Here are symbols to remind us of our lifelong need of grace;
here are table, font, and pulpit; here the cross has central place.
Here in honesty of preaching, here in silence, as in speech,
here, in newness and renewal, God the Spirit comes to each.
Here our children find a welcome in the Shepherd’s flock and fold;
here as bread and wine are taken, Christ sustains us as of old.
Here the servants of the Servant seek in worship to explore
what it means in daily living to believe and to adore.
Lord of all, of church and kingdom, in an age of change and doubt,
keep us faithful to the gospel; help us work your purpose out.
Here, in this day’s dedication, all we have to give, receive;
we, who cannot live without you, we adore you! We believe!
Here, O My Lord, I See Thee
Horatius Bonar (1808-1899) is the best-known hymn writer from the Free Church of Scotland. He was devoted to ministry and scholarship, and wrote many evangelical tracts and devotionals. Bonar’s family produced with a long line of ministers who served 364 years in the Church of Scotland. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh, and was ordained to be minister at North Parish at Kelso. During the “Disruption” in 1843, the evangelicals, including Bonar, pulled out of the national Church of Scotland to form the Free Church of Scotland. In 1883, he was elected the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland.
Bonar’s hymns truly convey both subjective emotion and a personal grasp of divine truth that he gleaned through his biblical studies and constant prayer life: a free and universal divine grace and communion with God through the Eucharist. The poet’s output included 600 hymns, many of which were widely accepted in Scotland and beyond. Four are still in regular use: “I heard the voice of Jesus say,” “Here, O My Lord, I see Thee,” “Blessings and Honor” and “I Lay My Sins on Jesus.”
Bonar’s older brother John James Bonar was a pastor at St. Andrews Free Church in Greenock, Scotland. After each communion service, J. J. Bonar would produce a service leaflet with hymns attached. He asked Horatius to compose a hymn, which was printed in the leaflet for the first Sunday in October 1855 under the title, “This do in Remembrance of Me.” The original hymn, with 11 stanzas, was included in Bonar’s hymnbook Hymns of Faith and Hope (1857). This communion hymn is filled with Eucharist images: partaking in the “Bread of God” and “wine of heaven” suggest a sense of “the burden of sin removed.” The elements point beyond themselves to a greater reality as we sing the paradox of communion—a time when we “touch and handle things unseen.”
The tune PENITENTIA was composed by Edward Dearle in 1880. He was a chorister at King’s College, Trinity, and St. John’s College, Cambridge. He attended Cambridge University (BM 1836, MusD 1842), and in 1837 won the Gresham Prize for his anthem “Turn Thee Again”. He served as organist at St. Paul’s, Deptford (1827–30); Blackheath Parish Church (1830–32); St. Peter’s Church, Wisbeach (1832–33); Collegiate Church of St. Mary, Warwick (1833–35); and Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Newark-on-Trent (1835–64). Dearle wrote a large body of religious music, and in 1875, helped found the Trinity College examination board in Portland Place, London.
Here, O my Lord, I see thee face to face;
here would I touch and handle things unseen,
here grasp with firmer hand eternal grace,
and all my weariness upon thee lean.
Here would I feed upon the bread of God,
Here drink with Thee the royal wine of Heav’n;
Here would I lay aside each earthly load,
Here taste afresh the calm of sin forgiven.
This is the hour of banquet and of song;
this is the heav'nly table spread for me.
Here let me feast and, feasting, still prolong
the brief bright hour of fellowship with thee.
I have no help but thine nor do I need
another arm but thine to lean upon.
It is enough, O Lord, enough indeed;
my strength is in thy might, thy might alone.
I have no wisdom save in Him who is
My wisdom and my teacher both in One;
No wisdom can I lack while Thou art wise;
No teaching do I crave save Thine alone.
Mine is the sin but thine the righteousness;
mine is the guilt but thine the cleansing blood.
Here is my robe, my refuge, and my peace:
thy blood, thy righteousness, O Lord, my God.
Too soon we rise; the vessels disappear;
the feast, though not the love, is past and gone.
The bread and wine remove, but thou are here,
nearer than ever, still my shield and sun.
I know that deadly evils compass me,
Dark perils threaten, yet I would not fear,
Nor poorly shrink, nor feebly turn to flee,
Thou, O my Christ, art buckler, sword and spear.
But see, the pillar cloud is rising now,
And moving onward thro’ the desert night;
It beckons, and I follow, for I know
It leads me to the heritage of light.
Feast after feast thus comes and passes by,
yet, passing, points to the glad feast above,
giving sweet foretaste of the festal joy,
the Lamb's great bridal feast of bliss and love.
First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
No comments:
Post a Comment