Tag: saints

Rejoice in God’s saints

Today’s hymn for All Saints Day from Sing Praise is ‘Rejoice in God’s saints’ by Fred Pratt Green.  The suggested tune is a 17th century metrical psalm setting (‘Old 104th’) but the tune John wrote to it had a similar feel.

The overall message in the lyrics is similar to that discussed yesterday: the saints come in various guises. There are people we consider especially holy, both the activists and the contemplative (who ‘march with events to turn them God’s way, (or) need to withdraw, the better to pray’). There are exceptionally heroic individuals who ‘carry the gospel through fire and flood’. And also the ordinary Christians who show their sanctity in quiet service of others (‘unpraised and unknown, who bear someone’s cross or shoulder their own’). 

The line that stands out in the first verse, repeated in the last, is ‘A world without saints forgets how to praise’. Perhaps that is intended to mean that the true praise of God is inspired by the actions of those who demonstrate what loving God and neighbour really looks like.

For all the saints who showed your love

Procession for All Saints day, Wyoming, USA
www.newliturgicalmovement.org

Today is the eve of All Saints day, and so for a few days we have hymns on that theme.  The first is ‘For all the saints who showed your love’ by John Bell and Graham Maule. The theme is set by the last lines of the first three verses, that all begin ‘Accept our gratitude’.  We are thanking God for what previous generations have done by way of example.

‘Saint’ simply means ‘sanctified’, or ‘set apart for God’.  Whenever it comes to talking, singing or preaching about saints there always seems to be a tension between the idea of ‘every Christian believer is equally a saint’ and ‘Saints are people with a special calling to do something out of the ordinary for God’ (such as found a monastery, challenge the status quo, or proclaim the faith in the face of opposition until they are murdered for it). 

There are elements of both these in the lyrics of this hymn. The first two verses focus on the first idea: ‘all the saints who showed your love in how they lived and where they moved’; ‘who loved your name … sang your songs and shared your word’. These are the ordinary people who in the way they lived their ordinary lives witnessed to the presence of Christ in them.

The third verse speaks of those who rose to a challenge: ‘who named your will, and saw your kingdom coming still through selfless protest, prayer and praise’.   The last verse brings these together, asking God to ‘bless all whose will or name or love reflects the grace of heaven above’.  Whether we live ordinary lives inspired by Christ, or feel called to be set apart in some special way, we are among the saints.

Glory to you, O God

Today’s hymn is ‘Glory to you, O God’ by Howard Gaunt. It’s another of the hymns from the ‘saints’ section of the book. The suggested tune is that of the hymn ‘My song is love unknown’.  John made some changes to the words and used a different tune.  But these comments are based on the words in Sing Praise.

The first verse gives glory to God for the saints, using the traditional language of the early Church of winning victory in the fight against the evils of fire and sword. The second gives thanks for those saints who walked in humble paths, speaking God’s word and act as shining lights to inform our own lives.  The third verse is about ourselves, asking to know God’s truth and walk his way as ‘saints on earth’.

These are three very different concepts of sainthood.  The language of the first verse is not commonly used in most Western churches today. Even British saints such as Alban and Thomas (Becket) who were martyred are not usually spoken of as winning victory so much as showing courage in the face of evil, and other martyrs such as Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley and (on the Catholic side) Margaret Clitherow are not usually called ‘saints’ even though they showed equal courage and loyalty to their beliefs. The language of war and victory does however still resonate with those in countries where persecution is still a reality.  The imagery of the second verse is more commonly found in our British churches, where we remember ‘home grown’ saints such as Cuthbert, Wilfrid and David whose ascetic lives are held up as a model of discipleship.  And the concept of all God’s people, living as well as dead, as being saints, is a popular one in our time.

Thanks be to God for the saints

St Michael defeating the Devil.
Cast in bronze by Jacob Epstein, 1959 for Coventry Cathedral
Photo (c) Stephen Craven

Today is Michaelmas, the feast of Saint Michael.  Which is why I have chosen a hymn from the ‘Saints’ section of the hymnbook: ‘Thanks be to God for his saints’ by Timothy Dudley-Smith.  Mind you, Michael is no ‘ordinary’ saint, he’s actually an Archangel, a created but eternal being.  Best known for his appearance in the book of Daniel as the protector of God’s people, he also gets a brief mention in the books of Jude and Revelation, though no longer on the labels of a well known clothes brand of Jewish origin.   

The hymn, though, or at least the first couple of lines, is more about the ‘ordinary’ saints, meaning not merely those who were specially canonised by the church as martyrs for their faith or allegedly responding to prayers addressed to them after their death, but the whole company of Christians who have passed over into eternal life.  Whether or not they can actually answer prayers (and that’s a contested bit of Catholic theology) it is mainstream Christian faith that they are “one with us still in one body, one great congregation”.

The other verses aren’t really about the saints.  The second thanks God for his daily blessings including the death and resurrection of Christ; the third, for our as yet unknown future in which Christ will keep us company, and the last for his calling and defence, not just of ‘special’ saints but of all who follow him.

We will have more opportunities to sing of the saints at the beginning of November.

Gracious God, in adoration

Te Deum window, St Mary, Woodbridge, Suffolk
© Copyright David Dixon and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “Gracious God, in adoration” by another writer new to me, Basil Bridge. It’s in the same 87.87.87 metre as yesterday’s (God of Freedom, God of Justice) but the suggested tune here is ‘Rhuddlan’. 

The first three verses are a call to worship, with the reminder firstly of the saints (those Christians, and especially martyrs, who have gone before us through life and death into the eternal presence of God) who though unseen, call us to join in their worship.  The second verse speaks of the silent praise of earth and sky, and the call of all Earth’s living creatures echoing that of the saints. The third verse is the call of Jesus “whose cross has given every life eternal worth”.

This ‘call’ of saints, creation and Jesus himself constitutes the fifth line of each and every verse in the hymn: “Come with wonder, serve with gladness”. This neatly links the call to worship with the practical task also commanded by Jesus in the Lord’s prayer and repeated at the end of verse 3: “Let God’s will be done on earth”.

The second part of the hymn, then, continues the theme of the last few days of God and people together serving other people in need and dealing with injustice. We are called, as we come with wonder, to ‘serve with gladness’ by sharing our bread (symbolically, anything we have) with those in need, and to seek peace with justice, living in hope, “for the Lord is near!”