John Mason Neale (and Year Ten)

On the birthday of the great hymnologist John Mason Neale (our spiritual godparent here) we also celebrate the ninth birthday of this site and begin our tenth (!!) year. His biography has been covered extensively in earlier posts (see links below).

Neale was largely responsible for reviving interest in the ancient hymns of the Church by translating texts from Latin and Greek (and other languages) that were unknown outside the Roman Catholic Church.  The Dictionary of Hymnology (1892) by John Julian says of Neale's skill at translation:

(...) Dr. Neale's exquisite ear for melody prevented him from spoiling the rhythm by too servile an imitation of the original; while the spiritedness which is a marked feature of all his poetry preserved that spring and dash which is so often wanting in a translation.

Today's hymn was formerly attributed to Saint Ambrose of Milan (c.340-397) but doubt about his authorship has persisted for more than a century now. Scholars agree that the theme and style are Ambrosian, but probably not the text itself. It's an office hymn, originally intended to be sung in religious communities on Friday mornings during ordinary time, but is certainly appropriate for use as a general morning hymn. Neale's translation (one of several in English) appeared in the enlarged edition of his The Hymnal Noted (1854).

Eternal Glory of the sky,
Blest Hope of all humanity,
Our Maker's sole-begotten One,
Yet born a humble virgin’s son!

The day-star’s rays are glittering clear,
And tell that day itself is near:
The shadows of the night depart;
Thou, holy Light, inflame the heart!

Uplift us with thine arm of might,
And let our hearts rise pure and bright,
And, ardent in God’s praises, pay
The gratitude we owe each day.

The faith that first must be possessed,
Root deep within our inmost breast;
And joyous hope in second place,
Then charity, thy greatest grace.

All laud to our Creator be,
All praise, eternal Christ, to thee;
All glory, as is ever meet,
To God the holy Paraclete.

Latin, 5th cent.(?)
tr. John Mason Neale, 1854; alt.
Tune: MORNING HYMN (L.M.)
William Boyce, 1769

Eight Years Ago: John Mason Neale

Seven Years Ago: John Mason Neale

Six Years Ago: John Mason Neale

Four Years Ago: John Mason Neale

One Year Ago: John Mason Neale

The Word Becomes Incarnate (Day Five)

A great and mighty wonder,
A full and holy cure:
A Mother bears the Infant
With virgin honor pure!

Refrain:
Proclaim the Savior's birth:
"To God on high be glory
And peace to all the earth!"

The Word becomes incarnate
And yet remains on high,
And cherubim sing anthems
To shepherds from the sky.
Refrain

While thus they sing your Ruler,
Those bright angelic bands
Rejoice, ye vales and mountains,
Ye oceans, clap your hands.
Refrain

And ancient forms shall perish,
And error shall decay,
And Christ shall wield his scepter,
Our Living God for aye.
Refrain

St. Germanus, c. 7th cent.
tr. John Mason Neale, 1862; alt.
Tune: ES IST EIN ROS' (7.6.7.6. with refrain)
Alte Catholische Geistliche Kirchengasäng, 1599

This hymn is still sung in some places, having survived mostly in Lutheran hymnals, though it predates Martin Luther by several centuries. Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, is a saint in both the Eastern and Western churches. Some of his hymns, including this one, were translated from Greek by John Mason Neale in his Hymns of the Eastern Church (1862).

The tune is much better known for its match with Lo, how a rose e'er blooming, which still does appear in most modern hymnals. This popularity is at least partly responsible for the loss of Neale's translated text, as we rarely sing two different texts to the same tune for the same occasion.




Seven Years Ago: Go, tell it on the mountain

One Year Ago: All praise to thee, O Jesus Christ

To Gain the Everlasting Hall (Day One)

Good Christian friends, rejoice 
With heart and soul, and voice;
Give ye heed to what we say: News! News!
Jesus Christ is born today;
Ox and donkey humbly bow
To Jesus in the manger now.
Christ is born today! Christ is born today!

Good Christian friends, rejoice,
With heart and soul and voice;
Now ye hear of endless bliss: Joy! Joy!
Jesus Christ was born for this!
Christ has opened heaven's door,
And we are blessed evermore.
Christ was born for this! Christ was born for this!

Good Christian friends, rejoice,
With heart and soul and voice;
Now ye need not fear the grave: Peace! Peace!
Jesus Christ was born to save!
Calls you one and calls you all,
To gain the everlasting hall.
Christ was born to save! Christ was born to save!

Heinrich Suso, 14th cent.
para. John Mason Neale, 1853; alt.
Tune: IN DULCI JUBILO
German melody, 14th cent.

It seems likely that most new hymnals published in the twenty-first century are going to change the original "Good Christian men, rejoice..."

The German original text by Heinrich Suso began Nun singet und seid froh and Suso claimed that the text was given to him by angels who led him in a dance.  It was adapted and translated several different ways over the next few centuries until our old friend John Mason Neale discovered it in a book of medieval Latin texts published in Sweden called Piae Cantones (1582) and produced this rather free paraphrase. The tune was also adapted by Neale's colleague Thomas Helmore for their book Carols for Christmas-tide (1853). It was apparently an error in transcription by Helmore which added an extra two notes to the third line of each stanza that Neale had to fill (e.g. 'News! News!).

P.S. - Yes, 'Day One' at the top means that we are in for another Twelve Days of Christmas here at the blog, only one year after the last one.  Hymns, songs and such for the season will continue through the Feast of the Epiphany.

Eight Years Ago: Once in royal David's city

Seven Years Ago: Where is this stupendous stranger?

Four Years Ago: Hark! the herald angels sing

Two Years Ago: What child is this

One Year Ago: Angels we have heard on high

Palm or Passion?

Most churches will celebrate Palm Sunday today in some fashion. In some traditions, the celebration, perhaps beginning with All glory, laud, and honor in a procession, extends through the whole service, the Gospel reading tells of Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and the final hymn is still something joyful like Hosanna, loud hosanna.

In other places, the reading of the Passion story occurs at some point during the service, changing the emphasis from celebration to suffering. The end of the service will be more somber, including something like O sacred head.  One argument for this seems to be that people today are less likely to come to church on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, so they should hear the story on a Sunday morning (and some churches don't even have services on both or either of those days, let alone on Holy Saturday). There is some resistance to the idea of leaving the palms aside for the Passion, though there also may well be those in the all-celebration mode who would like a little more of the upcoming suffering acknowledged. 

Today's hymn, perhaps more appropriate for the second sort of Palm/Passion Sunday, not only looks forward to the sadness of the coming week, but also to the final triumph of Easter. It's by John Mason Neale, first published in his Hymns for Children (1842) and one of his original texts (which are far outnumbered by his translations from older sources). 

O Christ, who through this holy week
Didst suffer for us all,
The sick to heal, the lost to seek,
To raise up them that fall;

We cannot tell the bitter woe
Thy love was pleased to bear;
O Lamb of God, we only know
That all our hopes are there.

Thy feet the path of suff'ring trod,
Thy hands the victory won;
What shall we render to our God
For all God's mercies done.

O grant us, Christ, at Easter day
With thee to rise anew;
Then at the last, to soar away,
And heav'nly life pursue.

To God, the blessed Three in One
All praise and glory be!
Crown, Lord, thy people who have won
Through thee, the victory.

John Mason Neale, 1842; alt.
Tune: ST. MAGNUS (C.M.)
Jeremiah Clarke, 1707; harm. William H. Monk, 1868


P.S. - Best hashtag seen for the day: #Special Fronds


Eight (Liturgical) Years Ago: Green Palms and Blossoms Gay

Seven (Liturgical) Years Ago: Hosanna, loud hosanna

Six (Liturgical) Years Ago: Ride on, ride on in majesty

Five (Liturgical) Years Ago: Come, faithful people, come away

Four (Liturgical) Years Ago: See what unbounded zeal and love

Five (Calendar) Years Ago: May Whittle Moody

John Mason Neale (and Year Nine!)

Anglican priest, scholar and hymnologist (also spiritual godfather to this blog) John Mason Neale was born today in London in 1818.  His father, the Reverend Cornelius Neale, was a staunch Evangelical who was ordained in 1822, only a year before his death.

Neale studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was considered to be "the cleverest man of his year" but since he had avoided any study of mathematics he was not allowed to graduate with honours, but only a regular degree.  While at Cambridge he developed an interest in the Oxford Movement, taking him away from his Evangelical roots. While many in the movement were mostly concerned with doctrine and, to a lesser extent, liturgy, Neale was also interested in church architecture, and how church buildings could be restored to the layouts of the early Roman Catholic church.

Following his ordination to the priesthood in 1842, his Oxford tendencies as well as his poor health limited his career opportunities.  He was under the authority of Charles Sumner, Bishop of Winchester (also an Evangelical), who prevented him from taking a curacy in Guildford and eventually installed him as the warden (not even the chaplain) of Sackville College, which was actually an almshouse.  While at Sackville, Neale spent his own money to restore the chapel, which has fallen into disrepair, but in following some of the architectural and design principles he had come to prefer (including open benches and candles on the altar), he again attracted the attention of the bishop, who placed him under inhibition for thirteen years, meaning that he could not function as a priest (and that the Sackville inmates could not receive the sacraments in their own chapel).  Though Neale remained firmly in the Church of England, it was believed by many that he would eventually leave and join the Roman Catholic Church, as many of the Oxford Movement followers (or Tractarians, as they were known) had already done.

He published more than a hundred books in the following years at Sackville, including his sermons, stories for children, and his great History of the Holy Eastern Church, for which he learned Russian in addition to the Greek he already knew.  Eventually he would master nearly twenty languages. 

Neale's tremendous contribution to English language hymnody stemmed from his Tractarian sympathies. In an article published in 1849, he wrote about the great heritage of hymns in the Catholic Church from centuries past which had been taken from the people when the Church adopted the vernacular during the Reformation.

That treasury, into which the saints of every age and country had poured their contributions, delighting, each in his generation, to express their hopes and fears, their joys and sorrows, in language which would be the heritage of their Holy Mother until the end of time--those noble hymns, (...) whether of the sevenfold daily office, of the weekly commemoration of creation and redemption, of the yearly revolution of the Church's seasons, or of the birthdays to glory of martyrs and confessors--those hymns by which day unto day had uttered speech, and night unto night had taught knowledge--could not, by the hands then employed in ecclesiastical matters, be rendered into another, and that a then comparatively barbarous, tongue. 

Neale took it upon himself to translate or paraphrase many dozens of hymns from Latin, Greek, Syrian, and Russian, publishing them in several different collections, including

The Hymnal Noted (1851)
Medieval Hymns and Sequences (1862)
Hymns of the Eastern Church (1870)

He also wrote original hymn texts, published in Hymns for Children (1843), Hymns for the Sick (1843) and elsewhere, though they are far less known as his translated texts, which appear in most hymnals up to the present day.  Today's short hymn of praise and trust in God is one of his originals.

Great Creator, you have taught us
We should live to you alone;
Year by year, your hand hath brought us
On through dangers oft unknown.
When we wandered, you have found us,
When we doubted, sent us light;
Still your arm has been around us,
All our paths were in your sight.

We would trust in your protecting,
Wholly rest upon your arm,
Follow wholly your directing,
You, our only guard from harm;
Therefore, God, we come believing
You can give the power we need,
Through the prayer of faith receiving
Strength, the Spirit’s strength, indeed.

John Mason Neale, 1844; alt.
Tune: REX GLORIAE (8.7.8.7.D.)
Henry T. Smart, 1868

Neale died on August 6, 1866, the Feast of the Transfiguration, so when he was later added to the Anglican calendar of notables, his day was moved to August 7. 

As I have mentioned several times before, John Mason Neale's translation of a long text by Bernard of Cluny we now sing as Jerusalem the golden, which contained the phrase which names this blog.  Though technically the first post here was on January 23, 2008, today we celebrate our eighth anniversary and embark on our ninth year on the occasion of Neale's birthday.

P.S. The stained glass window honoring Mason is from the church of St. Swithuns East Grinstead, which is located near Sackville College, and in which churchyard Neale is buried.


Seven Years Ago: John Mason Neale

Six Years Ago: John Mason Neale

Five Years Ago: John Mason Neale

Three Years Ago: John Mason Neale

Ash Wadnesday

This Lent, as taught by holy lore,
We keep in solemn course once more;
The fast to all is known, and bound
In forty days of yearly round.

The ancient seers that were of old
In diverse ways this Lent foretold
Which Christ, all seasons’ guard and guide,
In after ages sanctified.

Remember thou, though frail we be,
That yet thine handiwork are we;
Nor let the honor of thy name
Be by another put to shame.

Forgive the sin that we have wrought;
Increase the good that we have sought;
That we at length, our wanderings o’er,
May please thee here and evermore.

Latin, 11th cent,;
tr. John Mason Neale, 1854; alt.
Tune: FORD (L.M.)
Thomas Ford, 1614

Five Years Ago: Lord, who throughout these forty days

Four Years Ago:  Awhile in spirit, Christ, to thee

Two Years Ago:  O Christ, whose tender mercy hears

One Year Ago: All who seek a comfort sure

John Mason Neale

John Mason Neale (January 24, 1818 - August 6, 1866), often mentioned here, is remembered for his hymns both translated and original.

In translating texts from Latin, Greek, and other languages he was restoring those older hymns to the Church of England, whose hymnody up until then had grown largely out of the tradition of the psalm paraphrases of the seventeenth century and the subsequent work of Isaac Watts, John Newton, and others who wrote new texts for English-speaking congregations. 

His Latin translations in particular were looked on with suspicion by many Anglicans, who could not get beyond the Roman Catholic origins of the texts at a time when the Oxford Movement was luring many Anglicans into Catholicism.  Neale, however, remained faithful to the Church of England, which led the Roman Catholics to disparage his translations because he often changed or deleted lines that did not conform to Anglican doctrine.

Today's hymn is derived from the Latin office hymn Caeli Deus sanctissime. Its precise authorship is apparently unknown; it has been ascibed to Pope Gregory the Great and Ambrose of Milan, among others.

O God, whose hand hath spread the sky,
And all its shining hosts on high,
And painting it with fiery light,
Made it so beauteous and so bright:

Thou, when creation was begun,
Didst frame the circle of the sun,
And set the moon for ordered change,
And planets for their wider range:

To night and day, by certain line,
Their varying bounds thou didst assign;
And gav'st a signal, known and meet,
For months begun and months complete.

Enlighten thou our hearts, O God,
To walk the paths that Jesus trod;
To find the way that leads to thee,
Our Life and Light eternally.

Grant this, Creator, ever One,
With Christ, thy sole-begotten Son,
Whom, with the Spirit we adore,
One God, both now and evermore.

Latin, 8th cent.
John Mason Neale, 19th cent.
Tune: CONSTANCE (L.M.)
Henry J, Gauntlett, 1861

One slightly amusing fact about Neale: there appears to have been only one photograph of him, but if you search online you can find several other images which have all been flipped, cropped, or Photoshopped from that one photo in some way to look different -- the face is the same in all of them.

I now celebrate the birthday of the blog (which is technically one day earlier) on Neale's birthday each year, the man who first wrote the phrase conjubilant with song.  Five years and counting...



Three Years Ago: John Mason Neale

Two Years Ago: John Mason Neale

The Feast of the Epiphany

This year, January 6 falls on a Sunday, so the Feast of the Epiphany can be celebrated on its own day, instead of being transferred, as many churches usually do.  Today's hymn is by our old friend John Mason Neale, first published in his Hymns for Children (1842).

O thou who by a star didst guide
The sages on their way,
Until it came and stood beside
The place where Jesus lay.

Although by stars thou dost not lead
Thy people now below,
The Holy Spirit, when we need,
Will show us how to go.

As yet we know thee but in part;
But still we trust thy Word,
That blessèd are the pure in heart,
For they shall find the Lord.

Creator give us then thy grace
To make us pure in heart,
That we may see thee face to face
Hereafter, as thou art.

John Mason Neale, 1842; alt.

Tune: CREDITON (C.M.)

Thomas Clark, c. 1807

Four Years Ago: Saw you never, in the twilight 

Three Years Ago: Earth has many a noble city 

Two Years Ago: What star is this, with beams so bright 

One Year Ago: As with gladness those of old

Teach Us In Her Ways to Go

For the second Sunday in Advent we come to a familiar hymn which is a favorite of many, and has spread to most denominations in one form or another.

The O Antiphons are a collection of Latin texts which were sung in the Roman Catholic Church during Advent, one each night from December 17 to 23.  Theie date of origin is unclear, but apparently was no later than the eighth century.  These antiphons contain many different Scripture references which can be seen at the link above.  A later Latin hymn (1710) of only five stanzas was apparently the conduit which led to the English version by John Mason Neale in his Hymnal Noted (1854), which began "Draw nigh, draw nigh Emmanuel."  Neale's version was not a strict translatuon, and gave more attention to the part of each stanza which is a petition.  When the hymn was later published in Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861), the familiar first line was now in place.

The tune was arranged by Thomas Helmore, the musical editor of the Hymnal Noted, and attributed to an old plainsong melody.  However, for many years no original version was known, and there was speculation that Helmore might have composed the melody himself. Finally, in the 1960s, the original melody (though not set to any text related to the O Antiphons) was discovered in a fifteenth-century manuscript belonging to a French convent.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

Refrain
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, thou Wisdom from on high,
Who orderest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.
Refrain

O come, thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from every tyranny;
From depths of hell thy people save,
And give them victory over the grave.
Refrain

O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer
Our spirits by thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Refrain

O come, thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Refrain

O come, O come, great Lord of might,
Who to thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times once gave the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.
Refrain

O come, thou Root of Jesse’s tree,
An ensign of thy people be;
Before thee rulers silent fall;
All peoples on thy mercy call.
Refrain

O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of humankind;
Bid thou our sad divisions cease,
And be thyself our Source of peace 
Refrain

Latin, tr. composite
Tune: VENI EMMANUEL (L.M. with refrain)
plainsong, Mode I,
adapt. Thomas Helmore, 1854

As this hymn spread across different denominations, there were many alterations in the text (including abridgements) and tune.  Prominent theologian Henry Sloane Coffin made his own revisions in 1916, including this version of the final stanza:  

O come, Desire of nations, bind
All peoples in one heart and mind;
Bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease,
And fill the world with heaven's peace.

Coffin's alterations were later described by H. Augustine Smith in his Lyric Religion (1931) as "more acceptable than Neale's in their greater freedom and spiritual kinship with the modern church."  Nearly a century later, hymnal editors continue to strive for that modern relevance in this and many other texts.

Saint Simon and Saint Jude

Another October 28 has come around, the commemoration of Saint Simon and Saint Jude.  General hymns about saints and martyrs are always appropriate for saints' days if one for the specific day is not available.  This hymn is a John Mason Neale translation of the medieval Latin text O beata beatorum.

Blessed feasts of blessed martyrs,
Holy women, holy men,
With affection's recollections,
Greet we your return again.
Mighty deeds are theirs, and wonders,
Worthy of the name they bore;
We, with joyful praise and singing,
Honor them for evermore.

Faith prevailing, hope unfailing,
Loving Christ with single heart,
Thus they, glorious and victorious
Bravely bore the martyr's part
By contempt of every anguish,
By far-ranging journeys done;
Victors at the last, they triumph
With the host of angels one.

Therefore, ye that reign in glory,
Fellow heirs with Christ on high,
Join to ours your praise and worship
When before him we draw nigh,
Praying that, this life completed,
All its fleeting moments past,
By his grace we may be gathered
To eternal bliss at last.

Latin, 12th cent.
tr. John Mason Neale, 1851; alt.
Tune: EVERTON (8.7.8.7.D.)
Henry T. Smart, 1867

Neale's original translation was a bit longer but it has been altered by many hands over the years.  His original last four lines may show why it is probably not considered to be his best work.  

That this naughty life completed,
And its transient labors past.
We may merit to be seated
In our Lord's bright home at last.

'Naughty' is probably not a word ever used in a hymn text outside, perhaps, some for Victorian-era children. Hymn texts are sometimes altered not only for theological reasons, or for modernization, but just because a generally-great poet sometimes needs a little help.

EVERTON is one of many tunes by Henry Smart, whose birthday this past Friday (October 26) has been marked a few times at this site.  Though the tune is no longer very well-known, there is nothing about it that should relegate it to forgotten status.



Four Years Ago: Saint Simon and Saint Jude

Three Years Ago: Saint Simon and Saint Jude 

Two Years Ago: Saint Simon and Saint Jude

Not Faithless, But Believing Be

On the Second Sunday of Easter, many churches will hear the story of the disciple Thomas (from John 20: 24-29), who was not with the others the first time they saw Jesus after the Resurrection, and would not believe the story until he had seen his friend for himself. I like to remind people that the other disciples didn't believe the story either when Mary first told them the week before (Luke 24: 1-11), but somehow Thomas is the one who gets scolded for it and held up as a bad example.

This sixteenth century hymn, originally written in Latin by the French Franciscan monk Jean Tisserand, takes us from the Resurrection to the story of Thomas. The translation most often sung today is by John Mason Neale which first appeared in his Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences (1851). The tune is even older, but it is the one that has always been used with this text -- it's rare that a text/tune combination lasts for more than five hundred years, as we have seen.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

O sons and daughters, let us sing!
Tis Jesus Christ, whose tale we bring,
O'er death today rose triumphing.
Alleluia!

That Easter morn, at break of day,
The faithful women went their way
To seek the tomb where Jesus lay.
Alleluia!

An angel clad in white they see,
Who sat, and spake unto the three,
“Your friend has gone to Galilee.”
Alleluia!

That night th’apostles met in fear;
Amidst them came their friend most dear,
And said, “My peace be on all here.”
Alleluia!

When Thomas first the tidings heard,
How they had seen the risen Lord,
He doubted the disciples’ word.
Alleluia!

“My piercèd side, O Thomas, see;
My hands, my feet, I show to thee;
Not faithless, but believing be.”
Alleluia!

No longer Thomas then denied;
He saw the feet, the hands, the side;
“Thou art my Lord and God,” he cried.
Alleluia!

How blessed are they who have not seen,
And yet whose faith has constant been;
For they eternal life shall win.
Alleluia!

On this most holy day of days
To God yur hearts and voices raise
In laud and jubilee and praise.
Alleluia!

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Jean Tisserand, 1525;
tr. John Mason Neale, 1851; alt.
Tune: O FILII ET FILIAE (8.8.8. with Alleluias)
French melody, 15th cent.

The original melody has not survived completely unaltered; your hymnal may well have something a but different. The triple Alleluia most often is sung at the beginning and the very end, though some arrangements over the years have inserted it between each stanza. And, of course, most hymnals today do not include all nine stanzas.


P.S. - The illustration above is from The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, c. 1604 (not far from the origin of this hymn), by the Dutch painter Hendrick ter Brugghen.


Two Years Ago: Saint Philip and Saint James

One Year Ago: Joseph Addison

Let Us For a While Give O'er

Iu many churches today the readings will be recounting the story of the Transfiguration, which appears in three of the gospels. I believe this year's appointed version will be from Matthew 17:1-9. This is a twentieth-century innovation, because the true Feast of the Transfiguration falls on August 6. In earlier times, this Sunday was known as Quinquagesima, the last Sunday before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. The latest this day can fall in the calendar is March 7, so we are pretty much at the limit this year.

One of the customs associated with Quinquagesima in some places was a kind of farewell observance, in preparation for giving various things up for the duration of the Lenten season. In liturgical worship, the word Alleluia (from the Hebrew, meaning praise to God) is not used during Lent, neither spoken, sung, nor chanted, so this would be its last Sunday appearance until it re-emerges at Easter.

There were various local rites in the medieval church for this renunciation. In the French city of Toul, up until the fifteenth century, they would celebrate a full requiem mass and bury a coffin ostensibly containing the word Alleluia, which may have been the most extreme form of observance.

The Latin hymn for this occasion, from the eleventh century, is still sung today, though not quite as they sang it in Toul. It originally began:

Alleluia, dulce carmen

Vox perennis gaudii,

Alleluia vos suavis

Est choris coelestibus,

Quam canunt Dei manentes

In domo per saecula.

This was translated by our old friend John Mason Neale, preserving the original meter, and appeared in his Hymnal Noted (1851), and does still in several hymnals today.

Alleluia, song of gladness,

Voice of joy that cannot die;

Alleluia is the anthem

Ever dear to choirs on high;

In the house of God abiding

Thus they sing eternally.

Alleluia thou resoundest,

True Jerusalem and free;

Alleluia, joyful mother,

All thy children sing with thee;

But by Babylon’s sad waters

Mourning exiles now are we.

Alleluia though we cherish

And would chant forevermore

Alluluia in our singing,

Let us for a while give o'er

As our Savior in his fasting

Pleasures of the world forbore.

Therefore in our hymns we pray thee,

Grant us, blessèd Trinity,

At the last to keep thine Easter

With thy faithful saints on high;

There to thee forever singing

Alleluia joyfully.

Latin, 11th cent.; tr. John Mason Neale, 1851; alt

Tune: DULCE CARMEN (8.7.8.7.8.7)

Collection of Motetts and Antiphons, 1840

(there is, unfortunately, an egregious error in the harmony at the end of the third line)

The tune, which derives its name from this Latin text, had earlier appeared in plainsong form in An Essay on the Church Plain Chant (1782) by Samuel Webbe, but was arranged into its metrical form in a later book by Webbe. It's also been known as CORINTH and TANTUM ERGO, among other names.

Neale's first line of the translation was originally Alleluia, song of sweetness, which is really closer to the Latin dulce, but less often used today. His original third stanza is also quite different.

Alleluia we deserve not

Here to chant forevermore;

Alleluia our transgressions

Make us for a while give o’er;

For the holy time is coming

Bidding us our sins deplore.

I believe the revised version was written for the Episcopal Hymnal 1982 but I don't know by whom.

So here we have seven Alleluias to tide us over for the next six weeks. Alleluia will be back before we know it (nearly any good Easter hymn will have several of them). I'm kind of glad we don't have to actually bury it any more.

One (Liturgical) Year Ago: Not always on the mount may we

Saint Matthias

The feast day of Saint Matthias is celebrated today in some churches while others commemorate him on May 19 in order to move the occasion out of Lent, when it would generally fall (though not this year). In the Eastern Orthodox Church, his day is August 9.

Very little is known of Matthias from the New Testament, which only mentions him once by name, at the very end of the first chapter of Acts. He was one of the large group of disciples who followed Jesus from the time of his baptism to his ascension, and after that occasion he was chosen to replace Judas as one of the twelve apostles. Various contradictory accounts of his later life, ministry, and death have been told, and other scholars have attempted to identify him in the earlier New Testament accounts, often choosing different people.

There was also a lost Gospel of Matthias, only known to have existed by accounts of it in other writings, but it was later declared to have been written in the second century (by "heretics") and not by the apostle himself.

Today's hymn for the day by John Mason Neale first appeared in his Hymns for Children (1842), but was included in the much more widely-used Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861) and Church Hymns (1872).

Christ is gone up, but ere he passed
From earth to heav'n to reign;
He formed one holy Church to last
Until he comes again.

The twelve apostles first were made
His ministers of grace,
And they their hands on others laid
To fill in turn their place.

First called to know the Church's grace,
By apostolic hands,
To take dishonored Judas' place;
Matthias with them stands.

So, age by age, and year by year,
Christ's grace is handed on,
And still the Church he loved is here,
Though he himself has gone.

May all who seek, unite with us
In mission strong and bold;
Bring wand'rers in and let there be
One Shepherd and one Fold.

John Mason Neale, 1842; alt.
Tune: SOLOMON (C.M.)
from George F. Handel, 1749; adapt. ?

The tune SOLOMON is an adaptation by an unknown composer of a tune by George Frederick Handel from his oratorio Solomon (1749), specifically, the aria What though I trace each herb and flower. Handel's birthday, incidentally, was yesterday, and while he wrote no hymn tunes as we know them, several tunes in our hymnals are derived from melodies from his operas, oratorios and orchestral works.

P.S. The wooden statue of the saint is by the German sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider and dates from the early sixteenth century.