Today I enjoyed singing two great hymns, Crown Him with Many Crowns, and this one, sung to the tune of The Church's One Foundation.
Any good hymns at your parish today?
1. O Christ, the great foundation
On which your people stand
To preach Your true salvation
In every age and land:
Pour out Your Holy Spirit
To make us strong and pure,
To keep the faith unbroken
As long as worlds endure.
2. Baptized in one confession,
One church in all the earth,
We bear our Lord's impression,
The sign of second birth:
One holy people gathered
In love beyond our own,
By grace we were invited,
By grace we make You known.
3. Where tyrants' hold is tightened,
Where strong devour the weak,
Where innocents are frightened,
The righteous fear to speak,
There let Your church awaking
Attack the powers of sin
And, all their ramparts breaking,
With You the victory win.
4. This is the moment glorious
When He who once was dead
Shall lead His church victorious,
Their champion and their head.
The Lord of all creation
His heavenly kingdon brings,
The final consummation,
The glory of all things.
Any good hymns at your parish today?
1. O Christ, the great foundation
On which your people stand
To preach Your true salvation
In every age and land:
Pour out Your Holy Spirit
To make us strong and pure,
To keep the faith unbroken
As long as worlds endure.
2. Baptized in one confession,
One church in all the earth,
We bear our Lord's impression,
The sign of second birth:
One holy people gathered
In love beyond our own,
By grace we were invited,
By grace we make You known.
3. Where tyrants' hold is tightened,
Where strong devour the weak,
Where innocents are frightened,
The righteous fear to speak,
There let Your church awaking
Attack the powers of sin
And, all their ramparts breaking,
With You the victory win.
4. This is the moment glorious
When He who once was dead
Shall lead His church victorious,
Their champion and their head.
The Lord of all creation
His heavenly kingdon brings,
The final consummation,
The glory of all things.
Timothy T'infang Lew
Trans. Mildred A. Wiant
6 comments:
I don't know if they are "good" texts (my judgement is certainly less formed than yours,) but they seem sturdy and useful at least:
Christ is Made the Sure Foundation (Neale, to ST THOMAS)
God We Praise You (Idle, to NETTLETON) (This text seems to me to give short shrift to the Holy Spirit, a common problem.... I think He fared better in this regard when He had an easily rhymed, masculine name...)
Lift High the Cross (can't remember the author, CRUCIFER)
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
I prefer the original text of this hymn, i.e.,The Church's One Foundation. The "revised" text is a pale shadow of the original.
Anonymous, I agree with you that The Church's One Foundation is an incredibly strong and rich hymn.
But let me ask you: if you did not know that the tune (called Aurelia) is shared by these two hymns, what would you think of O Christ, the Great Foundation?
I don't think it's a rewrite. It seems to be a hymn text that was written on its own (in a foreign language), without reference to The Church's One Foundation, and was married to this tune.
Scelata, God We Praise You is based on the Te Deum, ascribed to St. Ambrose. In the Te Deum the Holy Spirit is mentioned only once, and briefly.
But I agree with you: Holy Ghost is a LOT easier to rhyme than Holy Spirit!!
In a seminar discussion this summer, the question arose: What makes Lift High the Cross so fun to sing?
I knew that was Idle's Te deum, oddly the "apportioning" of praise doesn't bother me in the Te Deum, but in rhymed strophic hymns it always does.
I don't know why CRUCIFER is fun, but you're right, it is. Actually, I don't know if it's the words or the tune (never heard the tune with any other text.)
The crowd (and the PIPs do sound like a "crowd" on it,) is never tentative on the high notes, the never have trouble getting with the tempo after the retard on the 3 chords going from verse to refrain... it just always sounds swell.
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
After attending a service (30th anniversary of the death of Oscar Romero) in London, I came across this blog and read the
various commentaries with interest.
Let me say that from the time when I lived in the USA (in a United Church of Christ, UCC, congregation), I know that hymn with its traditional
text ("The church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her lord ...").
Through the service this year, I learned that there is a new version, beginning with "O Christ, the great foundation ...".
I strongly believe that the author and probably also the translator of the new version must have known the old version; the thoughts expressed
pick up thoughts from the old version (verse by verse) but state them in a way that I can share and sing. I always had problems, for example, with the
"for her life he died" in the old version (first verse, at the end):
Did Jesus really die for the life of the church? The reports in the New Testament don't say so. I like hymns that have a strong melody, they may
have old-fashioned or traditional words, but they should express a theological meaning I can share. In this case, this happens with
the new version much better than with the old version.
Reinhold, from Germany
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