Hymn of the Day: “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy” ELW 588
Text: Frederick W. Faber, 1814–1863, alt.
Tune: LORD, REVIVE US, North American, 19th cent.
Frederick Faber, born in Yorkshire, England, was one of a number of English clergy who converted from the Anglican Church to Roman Catholicism in the Romantic era of hymnody in the 19th century.
Faber was born an Anglican and reared a strict Calvinist. After attending Oxford, he took orders as an Anglican priest and began his ministry as a rector. Influenced by his friend John Henry Newman who converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in 1845, Faber also converted to Catholicism that same year.
Both Newman and Faber were influenced by the rituals and tradition of Rome. Faber formed a community in Birmingham called “Brothers of the Will of God.” Newman joined the Oratory, an order of secular priests established in 1564 by St. Philip Neri in Rome, and Faber eventually followed him there. Hymnologist Albert Bailey noted, “Father Faber was the moving and guiding spirit [of the Oratory] as long as he lived, a great preacher and a man of charming personality.”
Drawing inspiration from the hymns of John Newton, William Cowper and the Wesleys during his Anglican youth, he recognized that Roman Catholics lacked a tradition of more recent metrical hymnody in English. He took it upon himself to remedy this. By the time he died, he had contributed 150 hymns, all composed after his conversion to Roman Catholicism.
“There’s a wideness in God’s mercy” originally had eight stanzas and appeared under the title “Come to Jesus” in Faber’s Oratory Hymns (1854). In a later collection, the hymn expanded to 13 stanzas, beginning with “Souls of men, why will ye scatter/ Like a crowd of frightened sheep?” That version was included in a posthumous collection, Hymns Selected from F. W. Faber (1867).
LORD, REVIVE US is an anonymous nineteenth-century American tune first used with John Newton's hymn "Savior, visit thy plantation" at #51 in Joseph Hillman's The Revivalist: A Collection of Choice Revival Hymns and Tunes, Original and Selected (New York, 1868). The last line of Newton's fifth and last stanza (in Olney Hymns, #51) was "To revive thy work afresh." It was printed as stanza 4 in The Revivalist. The last line of Newton's second stanza was "Help can only come from thee." Though it was not printed in The Revivalist, somebody seems to have known it and put the two lines together to construct the refrain, "Lord, revive us, All our help must come from thee." The name of the tune was born. The tune seems to be related to HOLY MANNA though it is not pentatonic.
Offertory: Prelude on “Open My Eyes” Charles Callahan (1951)
Charles Callahan is a well-known composer of music best described as exhibiting a gentle, confident lyricism. He is an organist, choral conductor, pianist and teacher, a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, Pa., and The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC.
The tune, “Open My Eyes,” was composed by Clara Harriett Fiske Jones Scott (1841-1897). She was the first woman to publish a volume of anthems, 'The Royal anthem book’ in 1882. This hymn first appeared in Best Hymns No. 2, by Elisha A. Hoffman & Harold F. Sayles (Chicago, Illinois: Evangelical Publishing Company, 1895). Some hymnals show the author incorrectly as "Charles" Scott.
Opening Voluntary: “Elevation,” Léon Boëllmann (1862-1897)
Léon Boëllmann was a Romantic French organist and composer who wrote over 160 works in his short lifetime of only 35 years. His best-known composition is Suite Gothique, which is a staple of the organ repertoire, especially its concluding Toccata. Had he lived longer, Boëllmann would likely be regarded today as one of the great Romantic French organist-composers, in a line that included Franck, Widor, and Vierne.
Closing Voluntary: “Invention #1 Joseph Callaerts (1830-1901)
Joseph Callaerts was born in 1830 in Antwerp, and spent nearly all of his life in that city. He started learning music when he was a boy, singing in Antwerp's choir of the Cathedral of Our Lady. As a young man, he studied the organ with Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens (whose “Fanfare” I played last month) at the Brussels Royal Conservatoire, and he won the first prize in organ at that institution in 1856. Starting in 1850, Callaerts served as the organist at the Jesuit College in Antwerp. In 1855 he became the organist at Antwerp Cathedral and in 1863 he became carillonneur of the city of Antwerp. From 1867 on, he taught organ and harmony at the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp, which had its name changed to the Royal Flemish Conservatoire in 1898. He also gave expert advice in the building of several organs. Callaerts has a traditionalist composer profile. Unlike his contemporaries, he did not search for innovative forms and did not aspire to convey a political or social message with his music. His compositions were widely appreciated during his lifetime, but their popularity decreased from the first decades of the twentieth century onwards.