Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is ‘Let us rejoice’ by Martin Leckebusch. John said that it was set in the book to the tune of ‘For all the saints’ but in my copy of the book sets it to a tune by Stanford – I wonder if we have different editions?
The overall theme of the hymn seems to be patience and endurance in the strength of God. The first verse speaks of peace and calm found in God’s acceptance, the second of strength to face trials found in his ‘fatherly embrace’, the third of trust in his glory and splendour, the fourth of the faith that ‘God is at work through all the griefs we share’, and finally of the love of God found deep in our hearts that prompts our praise. It would be a good one to sing on a (non-silent!) retreat.
I very much enjoyed singing this hymn, and it reminded me of the quality of Martin Leckebusch’s writing: Romans 5:1-5 is such a simple yet profound piece of scripture, and I thought it was great to have a hymn based on it that I could sing with such rejoicing. Yes to using it on a retreat!
About the tune: perhaps I expressed myself badly – nowadays “For all the saints” is almost always sung to Ralph Vaughan-Williams’ tune “Sine Nomine”, but of course Vaughan-Williams only wrote that tune as a result of being asked to be the musical editor of “The English Hymnal”, and before that book the hymn had to be sung to other tunes. “Hymns Ancient and Modern” (the unrevised version) lists no less than four tunes for it(!) – one is an “Anglican Chant”-type setting, two are almost never heard nowadays, but “Engleberg” by Stanford was the almost universally-used tune for this hymn before Vaughan-Williams’ tune came into general circulation. And I think it is a great tune. (I suppose, in a similar way, Michael Baughen’s tune “Christ Triumphant” was almost universally used for Michael Saward’s hymn of that name before john Barnard’s tune “Guiting Power” came in and supplanted it – but Michael Baughen’s is still a great tune.)
I felt that both Stanford’s tune and Vaughan-Williams’ tune are somehow too closely tied to “For all the Saints”, and both too bubbly for these words (maybe “bubbly” is a bad word, but I can’t think quite how else to express it), and I wanted something a little toned-down and less exuberant for Martin’s hymn.
Just for the record, I have never been able to enjoy silent retreats! At least, not communal ones – I can manage silence on my own, but not in the presence of others. What worse way of insulting fellow-Christians than to meet them and decline to speak to them?