I know what you're saying: "You've got the wrong verb. It's supposed to be gilds, not fills." But that's how I first heard it, and how I still prefer it.
John Wesley famously scolded the revisers of hymns, who made him and his brother Charles appear to be responsible "for the doggerel of other men." And I would often agree. So would Catherine Osborne, who hosts a blog called Bad things in new hymn books and other sad tales .
But frankly, the image of morning "filling the skies" means a lot more to me than the image of the skies receiving a daub of gold paint. It's truer, it's more beautiful, and it refers (for me) to Timothy Dudley-Smith's wonderful line "the vault of heaven springs." And it should refer (for everyone) to Charles Wesley's formidable Christ Whose Glory Fills the Skies.
This was one of the first great hymns I ever heard. On Good Friday and Holy Saturday mornings, Catholics don't celebrate Mass, so one must find a Morning Prayer service. At the Immaculata in San Diego, we stood in the choir seating in the transept and sang Sing My Tongue the Song of Triumph on Friday morning, and this hymn on Holy Saturday morning, about a decade and a half ago. That was my first real introduction to the kind of Church songs people call hymns. To the tune Laudes Domini:
When morning fills the skies
my heart awaking cries:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Alike at work and prayer,
to Jesus I repair:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
To God, the Word, on high,
the host of angels cry,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Let mortals, too, upraise
their voice in hymns of praise,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
The night becomes as day
when from the heart we say:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
The powers of darkness fear
when this sweet chant they hear:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
In Heaven’s eternal bliss
the loveliest strain is this:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Let earth, and sea and sky
from depth to height reply,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Be this, while life is mine,
my canticle divine:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Sing this eternal song
through all the ages long:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
John Wesley famously scolded the revisers of hymns, who made him and his brother Charles appear to be responsible "for the doggerel of other men." And I would often agree. So would Catherine Osborne, who hosts a blog called Bad things in new hymn books and other sad tales .
But frankly, the image of morning "filling the skies" means a lot more to me than the image of the skies receiving a daub of gold paint. It's truer, it's more beautiful, and it refers (for me) to Timothy Dudley-Smith's wonderful line "the vault of heaven springs." And it should refer (for everyone) to Charles Wesley's formidable Christ Whose Glory Fills the Skies.
This was one of the first great hymns I ever heard. On Good Friday and Holy Saturday mornings, Catholics don't celebrate Mass, so one must find a Morning Prayer service. At the Immaculata in San Diego, we stood in the choir seating in the transept and sang Sing My Tongue the Song of Triumph on Friday morning, and this hymn on Holy Saturday morning, about a decade and a half ago. That was my first real introduction to the kind of Church songs people call hymns. To the tune Laudes Domini:
When morning fills the skies
my heart awaking cries:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Alike at work and prayer,
to Jesus I repair:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
To God, the Word, on high,
the host of angels cry,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Let mortals, too, upraise
their voice in hymns of praise,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
The night becomes as day
when from the heart we say:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
The powers of darkness fear
when this sweet chant they hear:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
In Heaven’s eternal bliss
the loveliest strain is this:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Let earth, and sea and sky
from depth to height reply,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Be this, while life is mine,
my canticle divine:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Sing this eternal song
through all the ages long:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
2 comments:
"John Wesley famously scolded the revisers of hymns, who made him and his brother Charles appear to be responsible 'for the doggerel of other men.' "
Yet another reason to like Wesley!
It is one of my complaints against certain "vox dei" hymns -- no problem in principal, but when they put insipid words in the mouth of the Almighty it makes me bristle.
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
I have a working hymnography principle about this: No words should be ascribed to God unless they are directly derived from Scripture, either a quote or a paraphrase of a passage where God speaks, and quoted in a way that respects the context of the quotation.
That's verbose and not clear enough--but you get the idea.
Incidentally, that leaves out verse 1 of I Received the Living God. The others, I guess they're okay.
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