Hymns
Posts in Comfortable Words tagged ‘Hymns’
A hymn to the Virgin Mary, sung at the communion service of the Eastern churches.
This hymn is attributed to St John Damascene, a contemporary of St Bede. It is packed with Biblical allusions, all centred on the Christian belief that God entered into the womb of the virgin Mary and there became a human child.
A hymn sung in the weeks after Easter, imagining how Gabriel brought the news of Christ’s resurrection to Mary.
The Virgin Mary was among the women who came to Christ’s tomb expecting to care for his dead body, only to find the grave empty and an angel waiting for them. This hymn, sung in the weeks after Easter, imagines how the angel told the news of Christ’s resurrection to his mother.
A short hymn from the later 11th century, in praise of St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne.
This short hymn comes from a collection of hymns collected by English monks just after the Norman Conquest of 1066, and preserved at Durham Cathedral. Many of the hymns are well-known Latin hymns of the wider Roman Church, helpfully annotated with Old English vocabulary. Nestling among them is this affectionate little hymn dedicated to St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne (?635-687), who lies buried in the Cathedral there.
A hymn from the Evensong of the Eastern Churches.
This little hymn is one of the centrepieces of the Evening Service, also known a little misleadingly as the All-Night Vigil, of the Eastern Churches. The translation below comes from the Yattendon Hymnal, a collection of verses by poet Robert Bridges.
A song placed on the lips of the Virgin Mary, as she bent over her newborn child.
This hymn is attributed to St Ephraim the Syrian, one of the great hymn-writers of the Christian churches. A recurring theme in the Eastern liturgy is the bewilderment of Mary as she looked on her newborn child, so young yet timeless, so small yet bigger than the universe, so fragile yet holding limitless power. The translation is by the Revd Robert Moorsom, a clergyman from County Durham, who was eager for Orthodox-Anglican relationships to blossom.
A meditation on the Psalms, and on the evidence for the existence of God that is plain for every eye to see.
In The Spectator for Saturday August 16th, 1712, Joseph Addison argued for the great moral benefits of Christian belief while utterly rejecting any attempt to enforce it on the unwilling. A week later, he published a follow-up on the various ways to strengthen faith. Among them he recommended regular divine worship, an upright life, and retreats to the countryside to contemplate the works of God’s hands. He ended with these verses.