Hymns

Atheists Don’t Have No Songs

June 30, 2010

Brilliant. HT: Joseph Bottum at First Things

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Cheerful He to suffering goes?

March 1, 2010

The following is an article I wrote for our parish’s newsletter, Tidings, published in March 2010. A favorite Lenten hymn of many is “My Song Is Love Unknown.” It’s one of my wife’s favorites, too, and I remember fondly one year while we lived in Illinois Kassie suggesting we work at memorizing it during Lent. [...]

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Singing and sadness

February 27, 2010

I was looking for this Luther quote the other day and couldn’t find it. Entirely unrelated, I was just reading in The Lutheran Study Bible on Job 36 and Serendipity! When sadness comes to you and threatens to gain the upper hand, then say: Come, I must play our Lord Christ a song on the [...]

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Adeste Fideles

December 25, 2009

Adeste Fideles Laeti triumphantes Venite, venite in Bethlehem Natum videte Regem angelorum Venite adoremus, Venite adoremus, Venite adoremus, Dominum Cantet nunc io Chorus angelorum Cantet nunc aula caelestium Gloria, gloria In excelsis Deo Venite adoremus, Venite adoremus, Venite adoremus, Dominum Ergo qui natus Die hodierna Jesu, tibi sit gloria Patris aeterni Verbum caro factus Venite [...]

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Christmas Eve: Three Meditations on the Hymn, "O Savior of Our Fallen Race"

December 24, 2009

O Savior of our fallen race, O Brightness of the Father’s face, O Son who shared the Father’s might Before the world knew day or night, O Jesus, very Light of Light, Our constant star in sin’s deep night: Now hear the prayers Your people pray Throughout the world this holy day. “He knows if [...]

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O Savior of Our Fallen Race

December 24, 2009

O Savior of our fallen race, O Brightness of the Father’s face, O Son who shared the Father’s might Before the world knew day or night, O Jesus, very Light of Light, Our constant star in sin’s deep night: Now hear the prayers Your people pray Throughout the world this holy day. Remember, Lord of [...]

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Schmücke Dich, o liebe Seele (or, The enduring legacy of Lutheran Book of Worship)

December 17, 2009

Rev. Charles McClean recently pointed out to me that the version of Soul, Adorn Yourself with Gladness which appears in Lutheran Service Book (#636) has some disconcerting anomalies. LSB’s stanzas 5 and 6 are simply two different translations of Johann Franck’s original stanza 7 – the first is from the paraphrase in Lutheran Book of [...]

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"The Pelican Song"

November 7, 2009

As a favor to a parishioner, we are singing Aquinas’ great Eucharist hymn, Adoro Te Devote, tomorrow at Divine Service. It actually fits nicely with the Gospel appointed for the day (Trinity 22), the Parable of the Unforgiving Slave (Matthew 18:21-35), especially in this line: “Blood whereof a single drop has power to win All [...]

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Be a mensch

October 30, 2009

I play the piano at our Wednesday evening services. When we have Holy Communion, the piano bench blocks the aisle for communicants returning from the altar. For years, I could never remember to push in the bench after the Hymn of the Day. Kassie tried gentle reminders. I forgot. She tried admonitions. I ignored them. [...]

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Pour in oil and cleansing wine

September 2, 2009

This Sunday is the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Trinity 13), and I was thinking about having Immanuel sing “Jesus, Grant That Balm and Healing” (LSB 421). I was looking at it out of LSB and couldn’t find the lines that made it in the past a must-sing for this Sunday. Here’s the line from [...]

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