Arise - C. F. Walz
(c.2018, Lorenz Publishing)
Joseph Hart (1712-1768) was never voted "most likely to become a minister" by the friends of his youth. Though raised among Christian influences, he was not serious about spiritual matters and soon fell into, as he put it, the "vanities and vices" of youth. But as an adult he began to feel a concern for his soul, running what he described as "an uneasy restless round of sinning and repenting." Frustrated by his inner turmoil, he looked for answers elsewhere; and listening to all the wrong voices of the age, fell captive to a doctrine that taught grace unfettered by any responsibility. Among his scholarly writings during this period was a scathing attack on John Wesley titled The Unreasonableness of Religion (1741), which reveals his adherence to the rationalist critics and to a certain extent to deism. But approaching the age of forty, he became convicted of the error of his beliefs and reformed his ways. Over the next few years he began in earnest to seek a truer path, and eventually became a minister to a Congregationalist body in London.
Hymns composed on various subjects (1759), which went through countless editions as "Hart's Hymns," was written during this period of deep soul-searching and repentance beginning around 1757. According to Hart, "They are published not only in the same order, but also in the same manner in which they were first written: for though they have since undergone a cursory revisal, and have been lightly retouched, the alterations I have made in them are neither very numerous nor material." His collection is therefore not only an anthology of his work, but a spiritual journal of this period in his life. And for a body of hymns so quickly got together, his work well stood the test of time. Augmented by his supplements of 1762 and 1768, "Hart's Hymns" became a staple in Calvinist circles.
"Come, ye sinners" is held by many to be Hart's greatest hymn. It is #100 in his original 1759 collection, and falls within the last group of hymns in that work, probably written in the spring of that year. These hymns as a group seem to look back in review of Hart's spiritual journey, though they still shows flashes of that "disorder and darkness of soul" that plagued him over his sins. Frequent themes are the assurance of salvation, our hopelessness without the atoning work of Christ, the majesty of Christ revealed in His humble sacrifice, and encouragement to the weak in faith. To this extent, then, "Come, ye sinners" is as much autobiography as invitation.
Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you, Full of pity, love, and pow'r:
He is able, He is able, He is willing: doubt no more.
Come, ye thirsty, come and welcome, God's free bounty glorify;
True belief and true repentance, Ev'ry grace that brings us nigh,
Without money, without money, Come to Jesus Christ and buy.
Come, ye weary, heavy laden, Bruised and broken, full of sin;
If you tarry till you're better, You may never enter in:
Not the righteous, not the righteous; Sinners Jesus came to win.
Three additional verses are found in some hymnals by an unknown writer:
View Him prostrate in the garden; On the ground your Maker lies;
On the bloody tree behold Him; Sinner, will this not suffice?
Lo! th' incarnate God ascended, Pleads the merit of His blood:
Venture on Him, venture wholly, Let no other trust intrude.
Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream;
all the fitness he requireth is to feel your need of him.
The chorus that follows each stanza, however, is by an entirely different hand:
I will arise and go to Jesus, He will embrace me in His arms;
In the arms of my dear Savior, O! There are ten thousand charms.
Raymond Glover has identified this as a variant on one of the stanzas of Caleb Jarvis Taylor's "Don't you see my Jesus coming?" Caleb Jarvis Taylor (1763-1816) was a schoolteacher from Maryland who served as a fill-in preacher for Methodist churches in western Virginia and Pennsylvania. In 1792 he moved to north central Kentucky, where he continued to teach school as his primary support, but preached wherever and whenever he could. Sometimes he preached as an official circuit rider sponsored by a Methodist association, but more often it was his willingness to fill vacancies for other preachers that kept him in the pulpit. He was the founder of the Mt. Gilead Methodist Church just north of Paris, Kentucky, also known as the Old Matheny Meeting House, probably the earliest Methodist congregation in that area northeast of Lexington. By 1795 he relocated to the vicinity of what is now Maysville, Kentucky, along the Ohio River.
The Mt. Gilead meeting house was less than ten miles from the famous Cane Ridge meeting house, so it was inevitable that Taylor was right in the thick of the Second Great Awakening. And though he was known to be a successful revivalist, he was noted by his contemporaries as well as by modern historians as one of the chief songwriters of this watershed moment in American religious history.
The earliest appearance of the tune RESTORATION in print appears to be that found in William Walker's Southern Harmony. As was typical of the old colonial singing-school music, Walker's arrangement places the melody in the tenor voice; he added a bass part below and a "treble" above. The Sacred Harp version has an alto part, added in later years, to fill out a more typical voicing. William "Singing Billy" Walker (1809-1875) was a Baptist song leader from Spartanburg, South Carolina. His Southern Harmony (1835) is one of the most important hymn publications in American history, because it preserved many of the melodies of the camp-meeting folk hymns at a time when the generation that created them was passing away. (Earlier publications of camp-meeting songs did not include the music.)
C.E. (Carolyn) Walz was born and raised near Atlanta, Georgia, where, at age ten, she began piano lessons with Robert Fraumann, the minister of music at her church. By age twelve, Carolyn was playing piano solos for church services and accompanying children’s choirs. Apart from her musical studies, Carolyn had a keen interest in teaching English and writing children’s books. She earned her Bachelor of Art Degree in Christian Education from Atlanta Christian College and her Master of Science Degree in Middle Grades Education from Georgia State University. She authored several books for children and became a full-time English teacher at Woodward Academy. In 2015, she retired as English Department Head of the Middle School after more than thirty years of service.
Since retirement, Carolyn has become an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and a two-time national winner of the DAR’s American Heritage Instrumental Music Award. Today she continues to serve as a church musician, accompanist, and children’s choir director as she pursues her new interest: composing and arranging piano solos and choral anthems for Lorenz and other publishing companies.
Marching to Zion
The hymn now commonly called “Marching to Zion” began more than 160 years before Robert Lowry’s familiar tune existed. Isaac Watts first published “Come, We That Love the Lord” in the first edition of “Hymns and Spiritual Songs” in 1707. It appeared in ten short-meter stanzas without music under the heading “Heavenly Joy on Earth.” Watts revised portions of stanzas eight and ten for the second edition in 1709, showing that even his own authorized text was not completely static. The original hymn moves between present congregational joy and the hope of heavenly worship. Watts argues that Christian faith does not abolish joy but redirects and deepens it. The later stanzas develop Zion as an image of the believer’s promised fellowship with God, while the closing movement turns that hope into encouragement for the journey.
John Wesley adapted it for his 1737 “Collection of Psalms and Hymns,” omitting two of Watts’s stanzas and changing the opening from first-person plural to second-person plural. A related form appeared in Wesley’s 1780 Methodist collection and influenced later Methodist hymnals. Another old alteration replaced Watts’s description of the heavenly King’s “favorites” with “children,” a reading documented by the 1750s and 1760s. Modern hymnals therefore often print selected or altered stanzas rather than all ten from 1707.
Robert Lowry’s nineteenth-century adaptation made that movement even more explicit by adding a refrain and a new tune shaped for vigorous congregational participation. The result joins eighteenth-century English Dissenting hymnody with American gospel song and remains useful for services centered on joy, pilgrimage, the church, eternal life, and Christian hope.
Before Lowry, the hymn was sung to many tunes. One important alternative is ST. THOMAS, derived from Aaron Williams’s longer tune HOLBORN, first published in the 1760s. The shortened tune was in circulation by about 1769–1770, and its pairing with Watts’s hymn appears to have been established by John Cole’s “The Beauties of Psalmody” in 1805. ST. THOMAS remains a significant alternative in hymnals that preserve Watts’s text in a more traditional short-meter form.
Robert Lowry transformed the hymn into the gospel-song form now known as “Marching to Zion.” Hymnary commonly dates his tune to 1867, but detailed source work by Hymnology Archive finds no appearance in the often-cited “Silver Spray” of 1868 and identifies the earliest securely located printing in “The Victory,” edited by Chester G. Allen and William F. Sherwin and published by Biglow & Main in 1869. Lowry’s four-part arrangement placed the melody in the second voice, a common nineteenth-century practice, and he supplied a refrain whose ideas were drawn from Watts’s final two stanzas.
The combination of Lowry’s refrain and tune gave the hymn a second musical life in Sunday schools, gospel-song collections, revival-oriented books, and later denominational hymnals. Hymnary indexes Watts’s text in well over a thousand hymnals and Lowry’s tune in hundreds of collections. Both the eighteenth-century Watts text and Lowry’s nineteenth-century contribution are public domain, although modern harmonizations, arrangements, translations, and editorial revisions may carry separate rights.
The hymn holds present worship and future hope together. Watts’s title “Heavenly Joy on Earth” suggests that Christian joy is not postponed until the life to come. Congregational praise already participates, in an incomplete way, in the worship toward which God’s people are moving. Its theology of pilgrimage is communal. The Christian journey is sung in the plural, so discipleship is not imagined as a solitary climb toward heaven. The church travels, sings, encourages, and hopes together. Lowry’s refrain intensifies that corporate character by giving the congregation a recurring shared response.
Zion also functions on several biblical levels. It recalls Jerusalem and the worship of Israel, but Hebrews 12 interprets Zion in relation to the heavenly Jerusalem and the new covenant in Jesus. Revelation 21 broadens the hope further toward God’s final dwelling with redeemed humanity. The hymn therefore offers an eschatology of joy rather than escapism. Future hope is meant to strengthen present faithfulness and worship. The promise of God’s city does not make present valleys unreal; Psalm 84 shows that pilgrimage may pass through weeping even as God sustains the travelers toward their destination.
Come, ye that love the Lord, And let your joys be known;
Join in a song with sweet accord, And thus surround the throne.
Let those refuse to sing Who never knew our God:
But children of the heav’nly King, Shall speak their joys abroad.
The hill of Zion yields A thousand sacred sweets;
Before we reach the heav’nly fields, Or walk the golden streets.
Then let our songs abound, And ev’ry tear be dry;
We’re marching through Immanuel’s ground, To fairer worlds on high.
Chorus
We’re marching to Zion, Beautiful, beautiful, Zion:
We’re marching upward to Zion, The beautiful city of God.
Gloria Patri
Many congregations may take these words, sung weekly, for granted. Like many parts of liturgy, their roots extend to the deepest levels of our praise and prayer.
The text of the Gloria Patri falls into the broader category of doxology – in the Greek doxologia or “words of glory.” Doxology finds its roots in the Hebrew liturgy and the psalms as the kaddish. The kaddish is a doxology recited after the verses of a song. Its recitation signals the conclusion of one of the sections of the liturgy and has many different forms and purposes. In the Jewish context, a doxology blesses the One God and God’s everlasting nature. For example, Psalm 41:13 states: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting, and to everlasting. Amen and Amen” (KJV). This is a form of berakhah (blessing or benediction) that pervades Jewish liturgy and life. The Sh’ma is the most famous and prevalent statement in Reform Jewish liturgy that addresses these criteria:
Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad (שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד):
“Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)
Baruch shem k’vod malchuto l’olam vaed (בָּרוּךְ שֵׁם כְּבוֹד מַלְכוּתוֹ לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד):
“Blessed is/be the name of the glory/honor of His kingdom forever and ever.”
The “Baruch” is a berakhah added in the rabbinic tradition. It is very similar to Psalm 72:19: “Blessed be His glorious name forever.”
Given this heritage, early Christians adapted the Jewish form to include the Triune God and the Trinity’s eternal nature – “world without end.” Scholars suggest that the opening trinitarian formula is taken from the Great Commission in Matthew: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (28:19). Any trinitarian affirmation at the conclusion of a prayer became known as a “doxology.”
The Lesser Doxology has for centuries been chanted in Latin at the conclusion of psalms and canticles, especially in the daily monastic prayers:
Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto,
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper,
et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
The Greater Doxology is the fourth-century hymn Gloria in excelsis Deo, the incipit (opening line) of which was drawn from the angel’s canticle, Luke 2:14. This non-biblical canticle was introduced during the fourth-century Christological controversies as a corrective to Arianism – a doctrine attributed to Arius (c. 256–336) claiming that Jesus was subordinate to God the Father. The Gloria became a stable part of the ordinary (fixed) sections of the Roman Catholic mass except during Advent and Lent when it is omitted.
Protestants often limit the doxology to a single stanza from morning and evening hymns composed by Anglican Bishop Thomas Ken (1637–1711) for a resident boys’ school. While the four lines of this well-known stanza are Trinitarian, Ken does not specifically mention the eternal nature of the Trinity. However, he references the cosmic perspective of our praise to God – taking place both on earth and in heaven:
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise him, all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heav’nly host,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
The Gloria Patri, also known in English as the Glory Be to the Father or, colloquially, the Glory Be, is also referred to as the Minor Doxology (Doxologia Minor) or Lesser Doxology, to distinguish it from the Greater Doxology, the Gloria in Excelsis Deo. The lesser doxology is of Syrian origin:
shubho labo w-labro wal-ruho qadisho
men 'olam w'adamo l'olam olmin, Amin.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
from everlasting and for ever and ever (literal translation).
The Greek wording is as follows:
Δόξα Πατρὶ καὶ Υἱῷ καὶ Ἁγίῳ Πνεύματι,
καὶ νῦν καὶ ἀεὶ καὶ εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. Ἀμήν.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
Both now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
The Latin version differs from the Greek version because of the insertion of "sicut erat in principio", which is now taken to mean "as it (glory) was in the beginning", but which seems originally to have meant "as he (the Son) was in the beginning", and echo of the opening words of the Gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word". In 529, the Second Synod of Vasio (Vaison-la-Romaine) in Gaul said in its fifth canon that the second part of the doxology, with the words "sicut erat in principio", was used in Rome, the East, and Africa, and ordered that it be said likewise in Gaul. Writing in the 1909 Catholic Encyclopedia, Adrian Fortescue, while remarking that what the synod said of the East was false, took the synod's decree to mean that the form originally used in the West was the same as the Greek form. From about the 7th century, the present Roman Rite version became almost universal throughout the West.
Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto,
sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, and now, and forever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
The following traditional form is the most common in Anglican usage and in older Lutheran liturgical books:
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
The translations of "semper" as "ever shall be", and "in saecula saeculorum" as "world without end" date at least from Thomas Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer (1552).
Congregations use several traditional musical settings. One is by Charles (Christoph) Meineke (1782–1850), a German-born organist who moved to England around 1810 and then to Baltimore in 1820. He served as organist of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church for several decades. Meineke authored Music for the Church . . . Composed for St. Paul’s Church, Baltimore (1844). His musical setting, included in this collection, is usually given the name MEINEKE.
My Lord, What a Morning - J. Bert Carlson
(c.1998, Augsburg Fortress)
The 1790 U.S. census reported over 700,000 African-American slaves. The majority embraced Christianity with its promise of a life beyond suffering and hate. As a result, they created and performed songs, particularly the spiritual, combining European chromatic-scale melody lines with African rhythms and harmonies. Thus, the spiritual is among the most important, vibrant, and enduring elements of American culture and is our first wholly American musical form.
Slaves held informal, possibly secret, prayer meetings. Recalled former slave Wash Wilson: “Sometimes us sing and pray all night.” The spirituals sung in these meetings drew from hymns, the Bible, sermons, and African styles of singing. Most slaves could not read, so the spirituals helped to teach them the Bible.
The spiritual “My Lord, What a Morning!” proclaims that Jesus will return, just as he left, in his physical bodily form, on a cloud, and “wake the nations underground”—the dead—in supreme victory over the bitter cruelty of the grave (Acts 1:1-11) and was essentially derived from the hymn “Behold the Awful Trumpet Sounds.” The original hymn, first published in Richard Allen’s 1801 hymnal, show where the slave composer received his inspiration:
Behold the awful trumpet sounds,
The sleeping dead to raise,
And calls the nations underground:
O how the saints will praise! …
The falling stars their orbits leave,
The sun in darkness hide:
The elements asunder cleave,
The moon turn’d into blood! …
Although the original hymn lies forgotten, the spiritual has maintained its popularity, with its uplifting view of a new world to come.
The tune BURLEIGH (also known as YOU’LL HEAR THE TRUMPET SOUND) is an anonymous spritual tune. It is named BURLEIGH because of a well-known choral arrangement by Harry T. Burleigh which popularized this spiritual. This can cause some confusion as there are two other hymn tunes also called BURLEIGH.
My Lord what a morning, When the stars begin to fall.
You'll hear the trumpet sound, To wake the nations underground,
Look in my God's right hand When the stars begin to fall.
You will hear the sinner cry, To wake the nations underground,
Looking to my God’s right hand, When the stars begin to fall.
You will hear the Christian shout, To wake the nations underground,
Looking to my God’s right hand, When the stars begin to fall.
J. Bert Carlson (1937-2017), retired pastor, holds a master of music from Duquesne University School of Music and has served as pastor of Christ Lutheran Church, Whiting, NJ since 1997. Carlson wears many diverse hats as a piano teacher, organ recitalist, tenor soloist, musical director, and conductor as well as cofounder of the Chicago Oratorio Society and clinician for numerous workshops with an emphasis on choral methods, organ and hymn composition. His prodigious list of publications includes anthems, vocal songs, organ works, and piano works.
Open My Eyes, that I May See
Clara H. Scott (1841-1897) provides us with a hymn of consecration that has been sung for over 100 years. In 1856, Scott attended the first Music Institute held by C.M. Cady in Chicago, Ill. By 1859, she was teaching music at the Ladies' Seminary, Lyons, Iowa. She married Henry Clay Scott in 1861, and published in 1882 the Royal Anthem Book, the first volume of choir anthems published by a woman. Horatio R. Palmer, an influential church musician in Chicago and later New York City, was a source of encouragement for Scott, and helped her publish many of her songs. Three collections were issued before her untimely death, when a runaway horse caused a buggy accident in Dubuque, Iowa.
The text of "Open My Eyes" was written in 1895 shortly before Scott's death. Each stanza reveals an increasing receptiveness to the "Spirit divine." Open eyes lead to "glimpses of truth." Open ears lead to "voices of truth." An open mouth leads to sharing the "warm truth everywhere." An open heart leads to sharing "love to thy children."
The image of open eyes is common in the Bible. In some cases, this is a sign of Christ's healing power, as when Jesus gave sight to the blind man at the pool of Siloam in John 9. Closed eyes, on the other hand, could be a metaphor for avoiding the truth as in the case of John 12:40, a passage following the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem and beginning his journey to the cross: "He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them."
The image of open ears is also significant in the biblical witness. Matthew often reprises the theme "Who hath ears to hear, let him hear." Closed ears become a metaphor for a lack of understanding: "For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them" (Matthew 13:15).
While the eyes and the ears are receptive organs, the mouth has the capacity to project. The mouth may project "cursing and deceit and fraud" (Psalm 10:7), or it may be an organ that projects praise, as Psalm 51:15 exhorts us: "O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth thy praise."
The heart is the only organ included in this hymn that is not visible. It may harbor deceit. Jesus asks in Matthew 9:4, "Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?" But Jesus also realized that the heart has the capacity for purity: "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God" (Matthew 5:8).
Open my eyes, that I may see glimpses of truth thou hast for me;
place in my hands the wonderful key that shall unclasp and set me free.
Silently now I wait for thee, ready, my God, thy will to see.
Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine!
Open my ears, that I may hear voices of truth thou sendest clear;
and while the wavenotes fall on my ear, everything false will disappear.
Silently now I wait for thee, ready, my God, thy will to see.
Open my ears, illumine me, Spirit divine!
Open my mouth and let me bear gladly the warm truth everywhere;
open my heart and let me prepare love with thy children thus to share.
Silently now I wait for thee, ready, my God, thy will to see.
Open my heart, illumine me, Spirit divine!
Surely the Presence of the Lord is in this Place
(c.1977, Lanny Wolfe Music)
Lanny Wolfe (born 1942) is a Christian songwriter who has won numerous awards. Wolfe served for a number of years as the Dean of the School of Music at Jackson Bible School, Jackson College of Ministries, but his most significant influence has been introducing black Gospel music to Pentecostal churches.
"Surely the Presence of the Lord Is in This Place" is based on Jesus promise, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in their midst" (Matthew 18:20). It emphasizes the senses––feeling, hearing, touching, and seeing. We can feel the presence of the Lord––and hear the brush of the angel's wings––and see glory on each face. Wolfe was inspired to write this song in 1977 when a friend invited The Lanny Wolfe Trio to sing at a dedication service for a new building. "Surely the Presence" is the song that the Trio sang for that occasion.
Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place;
I can feel his mighty power and his grace.
I can hear the brush of angels’ wings, I see glory on each face;
Sure the presence of the Lord is in this place.
Sanctuary
(c.1982, Whole Armor/Full Armor Music)
The writer of “Sanctuary”, Randy Lynn Scruggs (b. 1953) is a music producer, songwriter and guitarist. He had his first recording at the age of 13. He has won a Grammy Award and was twice named "Musician of the Year" at the Country Music Association Awards. He is the middle son of Earl Scruggs. As a songwriter, Scruggs's credits include "We Danced Anyway", "Love Don't Care (Whose Heart It Breaks)", "Love Has No Right", "Don't Make It Easy for Me", "Chance of Lovin' You", and "Angel in Disguise". Scruggs has worked with many artists, including Michael Card, The Talbot Brothers, Waylon Jennings, George Strait and Emmylou Harris. His career dates back to the 1970 with the release of All the Way Home, a collaboration with his older brother Gary. Scruggs recorded his debut solo LP, Crown of Jewels, in 1998.In 1994, Scruggs teamed up with Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson to contribute the song "Keep on the Sunny Side" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization.
It is you, Lord Who came to save The heart and soul Of every man,
It is you Lord Who knows my weakness, Who gives me strength, With thine own hand.
Lead Me on Lord From temptation, Purify me From within.
Fill my heart with Your holy spirit, Take away all my sin.
Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary, Pure and holy, tried and true,
With thanksgiving, I'll be a living Sanctuary for You.
Sent Forth by God’s Blessing
(c.1953, World Library Publications)
This Catholic hymn from 1964 was written to direct the congregation out into the world as they depart the sanctuary. A song about transitions, it was also written at a time of great transition. Less than a year earlier, the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) released a document called Sacrosanctum Concilium. Best known for allowing the use of the vernacular language in Mass, it also encouraged the use of congregational music—psalms, responses, and even hymns—to increase the participation and unity of the whole church. It flung open the doors of Catholic worship and practice, elevating and blessing local expressions of tradition, encouraging the involvement of all believers, and focusing that involvement both in the church and outside its walls
No event, however, especially one this large, is the result of a single moment. Even before the council was convened, ideas about different ways to live their faith and traditions were welling up in Catholic laity and clergy. Omer Westendorf (1916-1997), organist and choirmaster at St. Bonaventure Catholic Church in Cincinnati and author of this hymn alongside other familiar hymns of this era such as “You Satisfy the Hungry Heart” and “Where Charity and Love Prevail”, a translation of the classic Latin hymn Ubi Caritas, was one such lay Catholic who was hard at work spreading new music. Inspired by a trip to Holland, Westendorf started the World Library of Sacred Music (now World Library Publications) in his garage in Cincinnati in 1950 to bring European music to America. He published The People’s Hymnal (1955), the first hardbound English hymnal to be used in the Mass.
What began with a trickle of Catholic authors writing music in their vernacular language for their local situations became a massive flood of hymns and liturgies with the release of the Sacrosanctum Concilium. It gave permission for dramatic change in the liturgy because of pastoral concerns, as seen in its opening lines from which it also takes its name: “This sacred Council (literally Sacrosanctum Concilium) has several aims in view: it desires to impart an ever increasing vigor to the Christian life of the faithful; to adapt more suitably to the needs of our own times those institutions which are subject to change; to foster whatever can promote union among all who believe in Christ; to strengthen whatever can help to call the whole of mankind into the household of the Church.” To these ends, it focuses on the liturgy, “the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed,” and the “full and active participation by all the people” in that liturgy and liturgical life. It calls for education of clergy and laity, reforms of the rites, calendar, and daily worship schedules of Catholic life, and allows for the use of local cultural music and instruments, and the use of the common tongue alongside the traditional use of Latin, Gregorian chant and organs.
Most important, for “Sent Forth by God’s Blessing,” it also calls for “composers, filled with the Christian spirit, should feel that their vocation is to cultivate sacred music and increase its store of treasures”. With the experience, publisher, and connections needed, Westendorf moved quickly to answer that call. In 1964, less than a year after the Sacrosanctum Concilium, the People’s Hymnal was transformed to the People’s Mass Book, and expanded with settings for the mass and newly-written, specifically Catholic hymns.
“Sent Forth by God’s Blessing,” written in 1964 for that publication of the People’s Mass Book, was composed under the name pen name J. Clifford Evers. Despite this initial unenthusiastic reception among congregations, the People’s Mass Book sold over two million copies in three years and was instrumental in introducing ecumenical hymnody to its Roman Catholic audience.
“Sent Forth by God’s Blessing” is in many ways the direct child of the Sacrosanctum Concilium, not only by its very existence, but in its contents and usage. This is a bit clearer in its original text, much of which has been adapted for a more ecumenical and modern audience. The original text refers to the Eucharist, part of every mass, by noting “God’s sacrifice ended.” Some have adapted this to “the supper is ended.” Others, including The United Methodist Hymnal, avoid the reference to the Eucharist altogether and have changed the phrase to “the service is ended.” Most non-Catholics wouldn’t find much familiar in singing about “the fruits of this Mass” which is adapted to “the fruits of our worship.” The original text, however, consists of almost direct quotations from the papal document itself. The second stanza’s focus on the unity of a people who were fed together, and now live “as one in this life that we share” for the purpose of “God’s children of each tribe and race” also reflects the unifying and evangelical purpose of the reforms. The metaphor of seeds blossoming in “receptive souls” echoes the parable of the sower, conforming to the instruction to “[draw] chiefly from holy scripture and from liturgical sources”.
“Sent Forth by God’s Blessing” also faithfully follows the directions of the Council to direct attention and “proper dispositions” to the liturgy. Singing a closing hymn following the Eucharist was initiated with Vatican II. This new practice served to extend the rather terse traditional closing, “It missa est” (the Mass is ended), and provide a direction for the assembly as they concluded the liturgy. It has a distinct place within the liturgy as a sending hymn, and it sums up what has happened in that liturgy and its purpose as the congregation moves out into the world. It balances neatly between the world within the church walls where God’s word is planted and the world without where that word grows by actions out of the good soil of our hearts.
Westendorf’s choice of music helps with this movement. ASH GROVE, an upbeat and flowing Welsh harp tune already familiar to many when it was paired with the popular text “Let All Things Now Living” by Katherine K. Davis (1892-1980) as an anthem, sends people out energized and encouraged for action.
“Sent Forth by God’s Blessing” is a song that moves the church forward in daily life and in history. As the effects of the Second Vatican Council have spread over the world, bringing new life and vigor (and challenges) to the whole Christian world, it calls for us be sent forth as well, empowered to change the world we meet outside our doors.
Sent forth by God's blessing, our true faith confessing,
the people of God from this dwelling take leave.
The service is ended, O now be extended
the fruits of our worship in all who believe.
The seed of the teaching, receptive souls reaching,
shall blossom in action for god and for all.
God's grace did invite us, and love shall unite us
to work for God's kingdom and answer the call.
With praise and thanksgiving to God ever living,
the tasks of our everyday life we will face.
Our faith ever sharing, in love ever caring,
embracing God's children of each tribe and race.
With your grace you feed us, with your light now lead us;
unite us as one in this life that we share.
Then may all the living with praise and thanksgiving
give honor to Christ and that name which we bear.
The King is Coming! - Fred Bock
(c.1973, William J. Gaither)
Bill Gaither is a legend in gospel music. He’s made his mark in the field as a performer, song writer, producer and driving force behind the incredibly successful Gaither Homecoming series of videos, recordings and concerts. He began singing with his siblings, Danny and Mary Ann, as the Bill Gaither Trio in 1956 while still in college. After graduation, Bill began teaching English at Alexandria (Indiana) High School where he met his future wife, writing partner, and (when his sister Mary Ann left the group) fellow trio singer, Gloria. The group, which recorded 33 albums and won two Grammys and two Gospel Music Association (GMA) Dove Awards, was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1999.
“The King Is Coming,” won the Dove Award for Song of the Year in 1971. It was written in 1970 after the Gaithers spent an evening having dinner and discussing Jesus’ Second Coming with two evangelist friends. Part of their discussion centered on a recent sermon the two friends had heard in which the preacher, Jim Crabtree, pointed out that, although Biblical Christians believe that Jesus will return in glory to earth, most are too busy with everyday life to give it much thought. The preacher ended his sermon by walking out through the congregation shouting, “The King is coming! The King is coming!” After the two friends had left, Gloria began writing the words and Bill the music. Gloria later shared that “I saw an image of the coronation of a King, who walked down the corridor of history; I could see lining the corridor throngs of witnesses of His redeeming grace… When the lyric was written, I felt spent, yet shaky with excitement. I took the words in to Bill and he immediately played and sang them fitting them like a glove to the music he’d been hearing. His chorus finished the piece with simplicity and power.”
The marketplace is empty, no more traffic in the streets;
all the builders’ tools are silent, no more time to harvest wheat;
busy housewives cease their labors, in the courtroom no debate;
work on earth is all suspended as the King comes thro’ the gate.
Happy faces line the hallways, those whose lives have been redeemed;
broken homes that He has mended, those from prison He has freed;
little children and the aged, hand in hand stand all aglow;
who were crippled, broken, ruined, clad in garments white as snow.
I can hear the chariots rumble, I can see the marching throng;
The flurry of God's trumpets Spells the end of sin and wrong.
Regal robes are now unfolding, Heaven’s grandstand's all in place.
Heaven's choir now assembled Start to sing "Amazing Grace”.
CHORUS
O, the King is coming, the King is coming!
I just heard the trumpets sounding, and now His face I see.
O, the King is coming, the King is coming!
Praise God, He’s coming for me!
Fred Bock (1939-1998) is regarded as one of the most recognized and respected leaders in the church music world. He was an esteemed arranger, choral director, clinician, composer, music publisher, organist, pianist and studio musician.
Born and raised in Great Neck, New York, Bock always knew he had a passion for music. At the age of 6 he learned how to read sheet music and play instruments, the first one being the piano. At the age of 12, he began to play the organ. Bock attended Ithaca College, New York, where he received his B.A. in Music Education, and earned his Masters at the Church of Music at the University of Southern California. Fred was awarded an honorary Ph.D. from Taylor University, Upland, Indiana in the 1980's.
At 24 years old, Fred Bock became the founder and Director of Publications for the music publishing branch of Word, Inc., all while completing graduate courses at the University of Southern California. He dedicated 7 years to the company, later resigning to become the founder of Gentry Publications, an educational music company which offers sacred and secular arrangements for houses of worship. Overtime, Bock expanded his interests and developed several more publishing companies, the two largest being Gentry Publications and Fred Bock Music Company, a music publisher of church music for choir, organ and piano. Through the years, he acquired the Raymond A. Hoffman Company, a supplier of operettas for grade-school use; the H. T. FitzSimons Company, a supplier of organ and choral music for worship, as well as the Hamelle edition of Gabriel Faure’s REQUIEM; and Fox Music Publishing. These publishing companies and more encompass Fred Bock Publishing Group as we know it today.
Along with his entrepreneurship, Fred Bock was more than a businessman. Bock was also an avid lover of music, active member of church communities and an accomplished composer. He served as the Minister of Music at Hollywood Presbyterian Church for 18 years, and at the Bel Air Presbyterian Church, Los Angeles for 14 years. In 1976, he became the Editor of Hymns for the revolutionary collection Hymns for the Family of God. Known for his good humor, Fred closed the foreword to Keyboard Duets for Organ and Piano with these words which give the measure of the man...."I shall never forget the evening of October 16, 1968*...*The evening referred to by Mr. Bock was when he fell asleep during an organ recital he was giving.
Trinity United Methodist Church, Duncanville, Texas
Thank you Margo! It’s amazing how much the lyrics to some songs change over the years. Chris Dodge
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