Hymns
Posts in Comfortable Words tagged ‘Hymns’
An eighth-century hymn of the Greek Church, for Easter Day
This Easter hymn was composed by St John Damascene (676-749), a contemporary of St Bede. According to tradition, he held a hymn-writing contest with his adopted brother Cosmas, at the end of which Cosmas cheerfully pronounced John the winner.
A hymn for the vigil of Easter, recalling Christ’s descent into the abode of the dead and his triumphant return.
This hymn, a particular favourite of St Bede, was sung on Holy Saturday, the day before Easter Day. It speaks of the victory of Christ over the dark angels, of the continuing power of the sign of the cross, marked in oil on a Christian’s forehead at baptism, and of the descent of Christ into hell. The author, who is unknown, lived in the fifth or sixth century.
A hymn for Holy Saturday by the eighth-century Syrian hymnographer St John Damascene.
St John Damascene was one of the Eastern churches’ greatest hymnographers, and like his English contemporary St Bede skilled not only in poetry but also in music and the sciences. This hymn draws on his extensive Biblical learning to reflect on dying and living with Christ for Holy Saturday, Easter Eve.
A superlative Christian poem based on Righteous Jacob’s encounter with an angel.
The great English hymn-writer Isaac Watts said of this poem by his contemporary, Charles Wesley, that it was worth all that he himself had ever written. In Genesis 32, Jacob, whose family and friends have gone on ahead, is forced to spend a night wrestling with an angel. He yields after receiving a leg injury, and asks his opponent’s name. ‘Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?’ replies the angel — and is gone.
A meditation on the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.
Some Christians of Galatia, to avoid State persecution as Christians, tried to get their fellows to be circumcised so all could claim to be Jews. Isaac Watts shared St Paul’s conviction that to exchange the cross for any other badge of identity, however socially respectable, would be the saddest of bargains.
One of the best-loved of all hymns in the English language.
One Sunday evening in 1847, the Revd Henry Lyte was overwhelmed with sadness. He had just celebrated his last communion service at Brixham after twenty-four years of ministry, and was preparing to go abroad in a last effort to save his failing health. As he looked out to sea these words came to him, as they came to nurse Edith Cavell shortly before she was shot in 1915.