Tag: evening

We praise you Father for your gift

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is the last, for now, in the series of evening ones: ‘We praise you Father for your gift’. It is attributed not to an individual but to St Mary’s Abbey, West Malling (Kent). The tune (Gonfalon Royal) is not written for it, and we’ve used it twice already this year (see 7 March and 5 April).

In the first verse we praise God for dusk and nightfall. Why? Because they ‘foreshadow the mystery of death that leads to endless day’.  The assumption we have as we go to sleep that whether our dreams be good or bad we will awaken in the morning, should also be the assumption we have at the end of life that whatever experiences lie beyond it, we will be received into a new life with Christ.

The second verse is more earthbound. We ask for quiet sleep to renew strength, gain looking ahead to morning when may wake in the love of God.  The third and final verse of this short hymn asks that we may seek God’s glory in rest as well as in activity – a reminder to us who are naturally active that rest and sleep are an important part of life.

Light of Gladness

Lights at the Candlemas service,
Drighlington St Paul, 2020

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is another evening hymn by Christopher Idle, ‘Light of gladness, Lord of glory’. It is set here to the tune ‘Quem pastores laudavere’. The tune, whose name refers to shepherds, is not surprisingly in the form of a berceuse (pastoral chant or lullaby), also appropriate for an evening hymn.

The words are a setting of the ancient evening hymn ‘Phos hilaron’ (light of joy) which is usually thought of as an evening hymn, though there is only a passing reference to evening. Maybe the intention is to contrast the fading of daylight with the eternal light of Christ.

The first and last verses praise Jesus specifically, addressed first as ‘light of gladness, Lord of glory’ and asking him to ‘shine on us in your mercy’, and later as Son of God, with no petition but praising him as the one whose light shall never grow dim.  In between is a doxology (‘Father, Son and Spirit praising with the holy Seraphim’), which usually would come at the end of the hymn: is this the order of the Greek original, I wonder?

The rhyming scheme is unusual:  the first three lines of each verse are mostly half-rhymes (glory/holy/mercy, descending/evening/praising, ages/praises/ceases) and the last lines of the three verses form a rhyming set (hymn/seraphim/dim).

Eternal light

Sunrise over the Bay of Bengal
(c) Stephen Craven

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “Eternal light, shine in my heart” by Christopher Idle.  John noted in Morning Prayer that this is actually an evening hymn, but as it makes reference to light and brightness it seems equally applicable to morning use. John also set it to the tune of ‘Colours of Day’ which certainly is a morning hymn.

The most frequent word in this hymn, though, is ‘eternal’, used nine times. The Almighty is addressed as the eternal light, hope, power, wisdom, life, brightness, Spirit, Saviour and God.   I’m reminded that the Biblical vision of eternal life is of a place where, in the words of another hymn, “they need no created light” for Christ is “its sun which goes not down”.  And as it says in Psalm 139 “the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.”

The image I selected for today was taken when visiting Christian development projects in India some years ago. I have a framed print of it, with the words of Proverbs 4:18, “the path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter until the full light of day.” If we have eternal life, then evening and morning are equally times to praise God for his spiritual enlightenment.