Hasting to Heaven

Our branch of the Church celebrated our annual Synod Eucharist yesterday. Our town got to host this year, so I was able to attend. It was a Mass for Missions. The richer the moment, the more we tend to associate other things with it and yesterday brought a host of thoughts.

As we sang Charles Wesley’s text “O Thou who camest from above” about the “fire celestial” coming down, I thought about Bishop Chartres’ opening to his sermon on the occasion of William and Catherine’s marriage: “‘Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.’ So said St Catherine of Siena whose festival day this is. Marriage is intended to be a way in which man and woman help each other to become what God meant each one to be, their deepest and their truest selves.”

Chartres’ admonitions to the bride and groom hold true for us as well as we consider our role in the mission of God’s kingdom. When we come to our true selves in Christ, we can set the world on fire.

Wesley’s text resonated in new ways yesterday: “Jesus, confirm my heart’s desire To work, and speak, and think for Thee […]” My limited understanding of “missions” has always included working for Him, maybe even speaking for Him, but thinking? I need to ponder what that even means.

An aside if I may:

I recently came across a curious little publication written evidently by Lutherans about church music in the U.S. in 1898 and it includes a short chapter about the Anglican tradition. My reaction was almost visceral as I read:

“Coming to the period of the English Glee, say from about 1750 to 1830, the tunes produced are found to be less strong and more flowing in style. The modern tune, with few exceptions, is in the free style, often reminding one of the part-song, and not infrequently abounding in chromatic progressions. Though perhaps none of the English tunes are comparable with the melodies from the classical period of Lutheran Church song, having as a rule a totally different character, yet many of them are so infinitely superior to the light and sentimental tunes and adaptations so often heard in churches using the English language, and have such a noble dignity of their own, that we make no mistake in recommending their use. But here again intimate acquaintance with the true Church style and with the old treasures of Church song is absolutely necessary in order to choose wisely.”

I can’t / won’t even comment — partly because I can’t figure out what he’s saying — does he mean “them” being English tunes as compared to American tunes using the “English language”? And, what, pray tell, is “the true Church style”? (But since the “fact” remains that none are comparable, one can only conclude that this true style must be Germanic…)

But suffice it to say, it was pure delight yesterday to join my voice with other congregants as we lustily sang Samuel Sebastian Wesley’s hymn tune, HEREFORD (1872), to his grandfather Charles’ text. Almost laugh out loud funny is the designation in the 1940 Hymnal to sing this hymn “in flowing style!” Here’s the text and a recording from Hereford Cathedral (S.S. Wesley’s first post after his education). (It’s the final hymn in their service and an improvisation by organist, Peter Dyke, follows.)

1 O Thou who camest from above,
The fire celestial to impart,
Kindle a flame of sacred love
On the mean altar of my heart.

2 There let it for Thy glory burn
With ever bright, undying blaze,
And trembling to its source return,
In humble prayer and fervent praise.

3 Jesus, confirm my heart's desire
To work, and speak, and think for Thee;
Still let me guard the holy fire,
And still stir up the gift in me.

4 Still let me prove Thy perfect will,
My acts of faith and love repeat,
Till death Thy endless mercies seal,
And make the sacrifice complete. (Charles Wesley, 1762, alt.)

My intention here is most certainly not to pit Lutheran church music against Anglican, but another genius hymn tune was included in our service yesterday, namely David McK. Williams’ MALABAR. How appropriate is this text translated from a Syrian liturgy in turning our hearts and thoughts towards the mission of the Church!

1 Strengthen for service, Lord, the hands
that holy things have taken;
let ears that now have heard thy songs
to clamor never waken.

2 Lord, may the tongues which 'Holy' sang
keep free from all deceiving;
the eyes which saw thy love be bright,
thy blessed hope perceiving.

3 The feet that tread thy hallowed courts
from light do thou not banish;
the bodies by thy Body fed
with thy new life replenish.
Syriac, Liturgy of Malabar; Tr. C.W. Humphreys, alt. Percy Dearmer, 1906

Interestingly enough, just the other day, I was listening again to John McDonough’s reading of Jan Karon’s A New Song and Fr. Tim asked Miss Bridgewater during her organ audition for his new parish to play this hymn. It’s one of his favorite texts, “a communion hymn worth its salt and then some” — he especially appreciates the line “to clamor never waken,” but McDonough sings the alternate tune, ACH, GOTT UND HERR (taken from the Neu-Leipziger Gesangbuch, 1682). The meter for both tunes is 8.7.8.7, but the text, esp. stanzas 1 and 3 lend themselves more to 15.15. And in my opinion, Williams’ MALABAR’s long, flowing lines are wonderfully suited to bringing out the complete ideas of the text.

Hymn tunes aside, though, what was particularly meaningful about the day, was how our Bishop brought the crux of the Great Commission back to the altar and how the goal of the Gospel, this side of Heaven, is to invite others, the hungry and thirsty, to our union with Christ in and through the Eucharist: “Drawn by thy quick’ning grace, O Lord, In countless numbers let them come, And gather from their Father’s board The Bread that lives beyond the tomb” (P. Doddridge, 1755, alt.).