Lift Our Hearts Above

In most Christian churches, today marks the observance of the Ascension of Jesus, though technically the feast day was this past Thursday, forty days after Easter.  Most hymns for the day are written around the "lifting up" of Christ into heaven (as related in Luke 24:44-53 and Acts 1:1-11), but there are other possible themes for the day as well, including the commissioning of the disciples as witnesses to the life and work of Jesus.  Today's hymn includes another possibility: the hope that we would eventually be lifted up ourselves to join Jesus and the saints.  The last stanza looks forward to next week's celebration of Pentecost.

O Christ, who hast prepared a place
For us around thy throne of grace,
We pray you, lift our hearts above,
And draw them with the cords of love.

Source of all good, thou, gracious Lord,
Art our exceeding great reward;
How transient is our present pain,
How boundless our eternal gain!

With open face and joyful heart,
We then shall see thee as thou art:
Our love shall never cease to glow,
Our praise shall never cease to flow.

Thy never-failing grace to prove,
A surety of thine endless love,
Send down thy Holy Ghost, to be
The raiser of our souls to thee.

Jean B. de Santeuil, 1686
tr. John Chandler, 1837
Tune: ILLSLEY (L.M.)
John Bishop, 1710



Eight (Liturgical) Years Ago: Alleluia! sing to Jesus

Eight (Calendar) Years Ago: How shall we praise thee, Lord of light

Six (Liturgical) Years Ago: A hymn of glory let us sing

Five (Liturgical) Years Ago: Hail the day that sees him rise

Four (Liturgical) Years Ago: On Olivet a little band

Three (Liturgical) Years Ago: God is ascended up on high

It's Also Mothers' Day: Motherhood, sublime, eternal

Another Mothering Hymn: Like as a mother comforteth

On Eagles' Wings Up To The Sky

As fewer and fewer churches conduct any sort of midweek services, the Thursday celebration of the Feast of the Ascension (forty days after Easter) is more and more often moved to the following Sunday (that is, today).

This text may be by Henry More (1614-1687), appearing in a collection with the very long title: Divine Hymns. Upon the Nativity, Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, &c. Written By the late Reverend and Learned Dr. Henry More ... At the Request of a Person of Quality.  Some sources indicate that this was originally a German carol that was only translated by More. (The tune here, though also German, is my own choice.)

God is ascended up on high

With merry noise of trumpet’s sound,

And princely seated in the sky,

Rules over all the world around.

In human flesh and shape he went,

Adornèd with his Passion’s scars,

Which in heav'n’s sight he did present

More glorious than the glittering stars.

Lord, raise our earthly minds therefore

Up to our promised country dear,

And purify us evermore,

To fit us for those regions clear;

So we may mount to heav'n's bright hosts

On eagles’ wings up to the sky,

And be conducted to the coasts

Of everlasting bliss and joy.

Henry More, 17th cent.; alt.

Tune: SO LANGE JESUS BLEIBT DER HERR (L.M.)

Gemein­den Russ­lands, 1914

More's text was originally in twelve stanzas, but several of them are very unlikely ever to be sung again, such as these two:

Captivity he captive led, 
Triumphing o'er the pow'rs of hell, 
And struck their eyes with glory dread 
Who in the airy regions dwell. 

Let our converse be still above, 
Where Christ at thy right hand doth sit; 
And quench in us all worldly love, 
That with thy self our souls may knit.

Five (Liturgical) Years Ago: Alleluia! sing to Jesus

Four (Calendar) Years Ago: Frances E. Cox

Three (Liturgical) Years Ago: A hymn of glory let us sing

Two (Liturgical) Years Ago: Hail the day that sees him rise

One (Liturgical) Year Ago: On Olivet, a little band

It's Also Mother's Day: Motherhood, sublime, eternal

The Feast of the Ascension

On Olivet a little band

Around their risen Savior stand:

And after charge and blessing giv’n,

He passes from them into heav’n.

Wistful their eyes, but angels twain

Cheer them with glorious words: “Again

One day shall Jesus even so

Return, as ye have seen Him go.”

Whom have we, Christ, in heav’n but thee?

Like ships safe moored on stormy sea

Our souls in peril, with thee there

Find anchorage of hope and prayer.

Set loose from earth, and evermore

Fast bound to that eternal shore,

So all our life and love shall be,

Ascended Savior, ris'n with thee!

Samuel J. Stone, 1866; alt.

Tune: MENDON (L.M.)

German melody; arr. Samuel Dyer, 1828

Four Years Ago: Alleluia! Sing to Jesus

Two Years Ago: A hymn of glory let us sing

One Year Ago: Hail the day that sees him rise

Seeking Thee Beyond the Skies

The Feast of the Ascension, forty days after Easter (and thus always a Thursday), is often moved to the Sunday after.

Hail the day that sees him rise, Alleluia!
Glorious to his native skies, Alleluia!
Christ, awhile to mortals given, Alleluia!
Enters in the highest heaven, Alleluia!

Circled round with angel pow'rs, Alleluia!
Their triumphant Lord, and ours, Alleluia!
There the glorious triumph waits, Alleluia!
Lift your heads, eternal gates, Alleluia!

See! He lifts his hands above, Alleluia!
See! He shows the prints of love, Alleluia!
Hark! His gracious lips bestow, Alleluia!
Blessings on the church below, Alleluia!

Grant our hearts may thither rise, Alleluia!
Seeking thee beyond the skies, Alleluia!
Ever upward let us move, Alleluia!
Wafted on the wings of love, Alleluia!

There we shall with thee remain, Alleluia!
Partners of thy endless reign, Alleluia!
There thy face unclouded see, Alleluia!
Find our heav'n of heav'ns in thee, Alleluia!

Charles Wesley, 1739; alt.
Tune: LLANFAIR (7.7.7.7. with Alleluias)
Robert Williams, 1817;
harm. John Roberts, 1837

Short entry today as I am off to NYC to sing a performance of Haydn's Creation in a memorial concert fot Johannes Somary, a famed choral conductor who died earlier this year, with a chorus of 200.


Three Years Ago: The Feast of the Ascension

Two Years Ago: The Feast of the Ascension

One Year Ago: The Feast of the Ascension

The Feast of the Ascension

Today is the “official” day in the church calendar that marks the Ascension, forty days (that number again!) after Easter, though not many churches will hold services today. The story is told in different passages, including Luke 24: 44-53, of Jesus' miraculous departure from our world. Some sources claim that the celebration of the Ascension began about forty years after tha life of Jesus, but it was not formalized until the third century. Given the varying days of Easter, Ascension can fall anywhere between April 30 and June 3, so we're fairly close of the mid-range this year.

Today;s hymn by Cecil Frances Alexander did not first appear in one of her collections for children, but in an 1852 hymnal published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

The eternal gates are lifted up,
The doors are opened wide;
Our Savior Jesus is gone in,
Now reigning at God's side.

Thou art gone up before us, Christ.
To make for us a place,
That we may be where now thou art,
And look upon God’s face.

Lift up our thoughts, lift up our songs:
And let thy grace be giv’n;
That, while we wander here below,
Our hearts may look toward heav’n.

That where thou art, at God’s right hand,
Our hope, our love, may be:
Dwell in us here, that we may dwell
Forevermore in thee.

Cecil Frances Alexander, 1852; alt.
Tune: REDCLIFFE (C.M.)
Phyllis Skene, c. 1902

Composer Phyllis Skene is another Voice Found, though unfortunately I have not yet discovered very much about her. This tune, with four others by her, appears in Hymns of Consecration and Faith (1902?), a hymnal compiled by Mrs. Evan Hughes. On the actual pages where her tunes appear, she is credited only as P. Skene, but “Miss Phyllis Skene” is thanked in the foreword of the book along with other composers, for “abundant help in contributing to the musical part of the collection, many of the Tunes being written expressly for this book.” I've sent this meager information to the Cyber Hymnal, where they were apparently unaware of even her first name or gender. (UPDATE: They have revised Skene's listing now with my submitted info.)

In prior years, I have marked the birthday of Sir Arthur Sullivan on this date. As it happens, he wrote the tune for an Ascension text seen here in 2008. While I was not terribly impressed by his tune ST. PATRICK at that time, another version can be heard here, at the Gilbert & Sullivan Archive, which gives a better sense of it. It's still no ST. GERTRUDE, though.

P.S. The picture above is a small portion of The Ascension of Christ by Tintoretto; you can see the full painting here.


One (Liturgical) Year Ago: The Feast of the Ascension

One (Calendar) Year Ago: Sir Arthur Sullivan

Hark! the Songs of Peaceful Zion...

Though technically the Feast of the Ascension was on Thursday, many (if not most) churches will observe it today. I've been told that there are only two feast days in the Episcopal Church that can "legally" be transferred to the following Sunday: Saint Michael and All Angels (September 30), and the patronal feast of a parish, but it's hard to believe, since Ascension, Epiphany, and All Saints' Day seem to be moved all the time. Naturally, non-Episcopalians have no qualms about movable feasts, since they rarely have any sort of worship on weekdays, and I'm not at all up on what the Roman Catholics do.

Anyway, if your church follows the liturgical year, you may be singing this hymn today. It's not as inevitable as Jesus Christ is risen today on Easter, but it's one of the best-known Ascension hymns with a tune everyone knows and sings.

Alleluia! Sing to Jesus!
Thine the scepter, thine the throne.
Alleluia! Thine the triumph,
Thine the victory alone.
Hark! the songs of peaceful Zion
Thunder like a mighty flood.
Jesus, out of every nation
Hast redeemed us by thy blood.

Alleluia! not as orphans
Are we left in sorrow now;
Alleluia! Thou art near us;
Faith believes, nor questions how;
Though the cloud from sight received thee
When the forty days were o’er
Shall our hearts forget thy promise,
“I am with you evermore”?

Alleluia! Bread of Heaven,
Thou on earth our food, our stay;
Alleluia! Here the weary
Flee to thee from day to day:
Intercessor, Friend of sinners,
Earth’s Redeemer, plead for me,
Where the songs of all the faithful
Sweep across the crystal sea.

William Chatterton Dix, 1866; alt.
Tune: HYFRYDOL (8.7.8.7.D.)
Rowland Hugh Prichard, c.1830

The popular HYFRYDOL first appeared in a collection called Haleliwiah Drachefn (Welsh, as if you couldn't guess) in 1855, some years after Prichard is supposed to have written it. It has been used for many, many different hymn texts since that time. One thing that makes this tune especially singable is that the melody is all within a fifth until the last line, which only rises to a sixth, so everyone can find a comfortable range to sing it in.

James Lightwood, in The Music of the Methodist Hymnbook (UK, 1933), writes that "a generous elasticity in its rhythm enables enthusiasts to fit it to other metres than the one for which it was written." I knew of one such enthusiast who was attempting to find a different text for every Sunday of the church year that could be sung to HYFRYDOL. You'd start with Come, thou long-expected Jesus for the First Sunday in Advent, I suppose, and proceed from there, but the congregation would probably mutiny during Epiphany and even the choir couldn't make it to Easter.

P.S. The picture above is a woodcut by Albrecht Durer that I couldn't resist as it depicts the Ascension from a slightly odd angle. Like the way I look at hymns sometimes.

The Feast of the Ascension

He is gone—a cloud of light

Has received him from our sight;

Through the veils of time and space,

Passed into the holiest place;

Still his words before us range
Through the ages as they change:
Wheresoe’er the truth shall lead,
Christ will give whate’er we need.

He is gone—towards their goal

World and church must onward roll;

Far behind we leave the past;

Forward are our glances cast:

Though himself no more we see,
Comfortless we will not be:
No, the Spirit still is ours,
Quick'ning, fresh'ning all our powers.

He is gone—but we once more

Shall behold him as before;

In the heaven of heavens the same,

As on earth he went and came;

In the many mansions there,

Place for us he will prepare;

In that world unseen, unknown,

Christ and we shall yet be one.

He is gone—but not in vain,
Wait until he comes again:

Christ is ris'n, he is not here,

Far above this earthly sphere;

Evermore in heart and mind

There our peace in him we find:

To our own eternal Friend,

Thitherward let us ascend.

Arthur P. Stanley, 1859; alt.
Tune: CULFORD (7.7.7.7.D)

Edward J. Hopkins, 1867

This hymn is a bit of a cut-and paste job. The original text appears to be in six verses, though I have mostly seen it in four. I've rearranged a few lines here and there while keeping the same progression of ideas. Admittedly, the tune CULFORD is not particularly well-known. Edward Hopkins wrote a number of hymn tunes, though the only one still familiar to many would be ELLERS. Sullivan's hymn tune ST. PATRICK was specifically written for this text, but it's not one of his better efforts. I almost like ABERYSTWYTH, but the mood is not quite right. The text could also be sung to EASTER HYMN, though I don't think anyone would (matching up the Alleluia sections would be a chore for many).