3 Pentecost, Proper 9, July 3, 2011
This Sunday, Grace Anglican Church will use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer for our Eucharist service. We do this the first Sunday of every month. So, you may bring your own BCP if you have one and turn its familiar pages or use our handy booklet that will be at the door. We also welcome our resident organist, Pat O Neil, back from California where she laid her 94 year old father to rest. May he rest in peace. Welcome home, Pat. We missed you.
Our opening hymn will be Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, written by Charles Wesley in 1747. At that time there was a popular tune to the “Song of Venus” in Dryden’s play King Arthur. The opening words were:
Fairest isle, all isles excelling,
Seat of pleasures ad of loves,
Venus here will choose her dwelling
And forsake her Cyrian groves.
Wesley capitalized on the tune and wrote his hymn in the same meter, using also two of Dryden’s rhymes, but the hymn is virtually a composite of many verses of Scripture, showing Wesley’s familiarity with the Bible.
The text of this hymn, which over the years has achieved both international acceptance and use, gained additional favor for Episcopalians when it was first matched with the Welsh tune HYFRYDOL in the 1940 Hymnal and continues in the Hymnal ’82 that we use at GAC.
Come Away to the Skies will be our sequence hymn and is another hymn by the great hymn writer, Charles Wesley. The text was written on the anniversary of the birth of his wife, October 12, 1755, and first published in his Hymns for the Use of Families (London, 1767), under the title “On the birth-day of a friend.” Interesting that it written as a birthday hymn for Charles Wesley’s wife and we find it suggested as a hymn today to match with Genesis 24:34-38, 4249, 58-67. This is the story of Rebekah and Isaac meeting, falling in love and marrying.
The hymn tune name is MIDDLEBURY and first appeared in the second edition of the four-shape shape-note tunebook A Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony in 1824, compiled by the Shenandoah Valley farmer, printer, and singing-school teacher Ananias Davisson. This is a spirited and fun hymn to sing.
The recessional hymn is Jesus Shall Reign -- one of Isaac Watts’ (1674-1748) most glorious poems. It comes from his Psalms of David Imitated (1719), specifically from the second part of Psalm 72. It was the earliest outstanding hymn written for overseas missions, and it is still the finest. Because of its modern, liberal tone it was somewhat neglected by the eighteenth century that gave it birth on the other hand, some of the best verses, relevant in 1719, are obsolete, and are thus omitted. The phrase “barbarous nations” has unfortunately ceased to apply to the countries outside the Christian pale. I'm not so sure about that, however.
The hymn tune for Jesus Shall Reign, DUKE STREET is the only hymn tune written by John Hatton. Little is known of John, except that he lived on Duke Street in the district of St Helens in the township of Windle, Lancashire. He is said to have been killed in a stagecoach accident and was buried from (sic) the Presbyterian Chapel of St. Helens. This tune for which he is known is named after the street on which he resided.
Next Sunday, Fr Baker and Jeanmarie will be away on vacation. We will have a Morning Prayer service officiated by our two Deacons, Mason Clingan and Ronald Jutzy. Come prepared to sing The Lord’s Prayer….well, we’ll work on it before the service starts, but I think many of you will find it familiar and welcome it back in plainsong form instead of speaking it. We’ll give it a try.
Sources:
A Treasury of Hymns
101 Hymn Stories
Companion to the SDA Hymnal
Hymnal 1982 Companion
Then Sings My Soul, Morgan
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