Yesterday Pope Francis opened the Holy Door at the Cathedral of St. John’ Lateran, his cathedral church as Bishop of Rome:
Paul Inwood’s wonderful hymn “Misericordes sicut Pater” for the Holy Year of Mercy was sung – quite well, I might add – by the Lateran choir:
Paul has put up this page with all the resources and versions (in various languages) for this official hymn of the Year of Mercy – here. Thanks, Paul – and congratulations!
This is no reflection on Paul’s hymn, but I hope a place can also be found for Fr Faber’s “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy.” It fits any 87 87 D tune (eg. Austria, Blaenwern, Hyfrydol, Abbot’s Leigh), and whilst it may not be the greatest of poetry, it is simple, direct, and uncomplicated. I would like to think that Pope Francis would approve.
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy
like the wideness of the sea;
there’s a kindness in his justice,
which is more than liberty.
There is welcome for the sinner,
and more graces for the good;
there is mercy with the Savior;
there is healing in his blood.
There is no place where earth’s sorrows
are more felt than in heaven;
there is no place where earth’s failings
have such kind judgment given.
There is plentiful redemption
in the blood that has been shed;
there is joy for all the members
in the sorrows of the Head.
For the love of God is broader
than the measure of man’s mind;
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
If our love were but more faithful,
we should take him at his word;
and our life would be thanksgiving
for the goodness of the Lord.
This verse is always a timely admonition, especially during this Jubilee of Mercy.
“But we make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.”
A problem with this version of the text: in stanza 2, lines 2 and 4, there are only 6 syllables instead of 7.
Here is another version, with the stanzas arranged in 4 lines instead of 8, and a different ordering, and showing what the correct version of those defective lines should be (“up in heaven”… “kindly judgment”):—
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
Like the wideness of the sea;
There’s a kindness in His justice,
Which is more than liberty.There is no place where earth’s sorrows
Are more felt than up in Heaven;
There is no place where earth’s failings
Have such kindly judgment given.There is welcome for the sinner,
And more graces for the good;
There is mercy with the Savior;
There is healing in His blood.There is grace enough for thousands
Of new worlds as great as this;
There is room for fresh creations
In that upper home of bliss.For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of our mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.There is plentiful redemption
In the blood that has been shed;
There is joy for all the members
In the sorrows of the Head.’Tis not all we owe to Jesus;
It is something more than all;
Greater good because of evil,
Larger mercy through the fall.If our love were but more simple,
We should take Him at His word;
And our lives would be all sunshine
In the sweetness of our Lord.Souls of men! why will ye scatter
Like a crowd of frightened sheep?
Foolish hearts! why will ye wander
From a love so true and deep?It is God: His love looks mighty,
But is mightier than it seems;
’Tis our Father: and His fondness
Goes far out beyond our dreams.But we make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.Was there ever kinder shepherd
Half so gentle, half so sweet,
As the Savior who would have us
Come and gather at His feet?
The text itself is a useful one, and somewhat unlike the rest of Faber’s output.
@Paul Inwood:
Isn’t there a theological problem with stanza 2? Heaven is a state of being, not a place, so the line “There is no place where earth’s sorrows are more felt than up in heaven” is an issue. Quickly surveying the hymnals in my office from GIA, Liturgical Press, Illuminare and OCP – all of them omit this stanza. Most of them have three stanzas: “There’s a wideness…,” “For the love of God…,” and “Troubled souls…” The Liturgical Press resources have just those first two.
There must be hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of hymn texts that refer to heaven in temporal or spacial terms. That’s how human beings typically think of heaven. I don’t see this as a theological problem that would disqualify those texts.
I just opened a hymnal to “Good Christian Friends, Rejoice.” JM Neale’s third stanza has “Calls you one and calls you all to gain the everlasting hall.”
Faber’s hymn text has twelve 8787 stanzas. Most folks today sing it to an 8787 D tune. And hymnal editors have been eliminating stanzas almost from the very beginning. I like the fact that most Catholic hymnals use at least 6 of Faber’s 12 original stanzas. I would imagine that the “There is no place” stanza is not used mainly because the 6 stanzas that are used have a very congruent flow to them, and not because “place” is mentioned.
Faber has some wonderful moments in his text, but not everything he wrote speaks to our day and time. It’s hard to find a hymnal that does not make alterations to his original.
@Fr Richard Duncan CO:
Calvin Hampton’s tune, ST. HELENA, is my absolute favorite for this text. (It’s in Worship Third Edition, but not in the fourth.) Haunting. It’s how I hear it now.
IN BABILONE is not bad, either.
We sang it on Sunday at the Cathedral of Versailles. Only the refrain, during Eucharistic Adoration after the door was opened. I thought it was beautiful, and everyone caught on to it right away. I thought it was one of those hymns that have existed forever and that every older person knows!
Thank you so much for the compliments, and the link to the webpage!
Since this thread was started earlier today, I have uploaded a whole new section of brass scores, parts and recordings, including the brass sextet prelude that was used on Tuesday morning.
Warm congratulations to Paul Inwood! What a beautiful contribution to the prayer of the Church at this special time. I hope it will be sung often!
Here in Rome it was a Sunday morning topic of conversation. Many happy comments regarding the fact the piece was prayerful and singable by the assembly – not always a priority in Rome, regrettably.
Doug – suggest that this is a hymn and the meaning is similar to a parable. Thus, the words, etc. are not interpreted as literal or even factual – rather, it conveys a *meaning*.
@Bill deHaas:
I don’t think so – a parable needs a story, and this text is rather direct. Some of it really cuts to the quick: “Foolish hearts, why will you wander from a love so true and deep?” “But we make his love too narrow by false limits of our own.” Ouch.
Sorry – I was unclear. My suggestion is to read the text for meaning; not literalism. So, at times the literal words and meaning align but at other times, they do not. Was trying to suggest that the meaning of a hymn is in a *parabolic* sense or method.
Composers such as Rory Cooney or Paul Inwood can do a much better job of explaining this than I have.
@Bill deHaas:
Bill,
Perhaps this is the danger of blogs and you didn’t intend it as such, but I find your comment condescending. I understand what you mean, and don’t need anybody to explain it to me. I’ve actually studied hymnology. With all due respect to Rory Cooney and Paul Inwood, they are primarily composers rather than hymn writers. I’d rather hear from a hymnologist or experienced hymn writer/professor like Carl Daw. While there is use of metaphor in this hymn, and one could read the heaven reference as metaphorical (see Fr. Krisman’s comment below), I don’t interpret this hymn as overall metaphorical. In fact, I think it’s rather direct. It’s certainly not parabolic.
With all due respect, Doug, I think Rory and I are just as much textualists as composers. The thing is, there are so few good writers of texts suitable for liturgical use that composers like us have had perforce to become writers of texts too. I won’t blow my own textual trumpet, but I do think that Rory is an original thinker whose texts have something to say, however challenging people may find them.
@Paul Inwood:
Write texts if you please – I’m not saying you shouldn’t, but can you honestly say that “there are so few good writers of texts suitable for liturgical use”? I rather think there are plenty, and the best and most fruitful results come from collaboration. Glancing through the index of Worship IV, here are some who are still alive (not all Catholic, but does that really matter?): Mary Louise Bringle, Carl Daw, Ruth Duck, Timothy Dudley-Smith, Delores Dufner, Christopher Idle, Jeffrey Rowthorn, Thomas Troeger, Brian Wren. You are in there twice, both settings of psalms in which you were the composer but not author. Rory Cooney is also in there twice, and in both cases he is both author and composer (one is a paraphrase of the Magnificat).
I suppose I should respect Anthony’s wish not to get these discussions sidetracked. The Sistine Chapel Choir does sound pretty good here, although I would wish for a more legato interpretation of the antiphon (maybe they were overcompensating for the space, and the mics were close?)
Perhaps I should have said “comparatively few”, when compared with the number of composers who are out there, looking for texts to set. I have set texts by Dudley-Smith, Dufner, Troeger, Wren and others, but I have often failed to find exactly what I was looking for and so have had to write my own.
And at the risk of derailing this thread even further, the hymn is only one liturgical form out of many (and Eugenio Costa’s text of the Hymn for the Holy Year of Mercy is not a hymn at all but actually a hybrid troparion-litany form! and I certainly did not set it in hymn-style); and Worship IV for all its qualities may not give a total picture of the repertoire.
I suggest that if you were to look at my works from OCP, GIA and WLP you would find a substantial number of pieces, some of them hymns, many of them in other forms, where I wrote both text and music. The same would be true of Rory, I think. Composers don’t want to write nothing but hymns, and by and large the authors you mention write only strophic hymn texts. The composer who also becomes a text writer is a modern phenomenon that might repay some serious study. We had to learn a new craft, and we were not always successful, especially when starting out. There are plenty of examples of author-composers out there, compared with fifty years ago when there were almost none.
@Paul Inwood:
That’s reasonable. We were on the track of “There’s a Wideness,” which is a traditional strophic metrical hymn. There is certainly room, especially in the Catholic liturgy, for other forms, but we were in fact talking about hymns. Some of Rory Cooney’s things I saw in Gather come close to being hymns, in that they are strophic, but the meter is altered for certain stanzas, with the musical rhythm changed to accommodate it, so I discounted them as hymns. And thanks for the acknowledgement that the winning “Inno” is not a hymn at all!
@Fr. Ron Krisman:
Fr. Krisman,
Thanks for the reasoned response. I was rather hoping you might chime in! The topic of heaven as temporal/spacial in hymnody would be an interesting subject for some hymnologist, if it hasn’t been done already. Even if the concept of heaven “up above” is not wrong, I would think that we could use some more hymns that refer to heaven not in spatial terms, but more numinous.
And, slightly off-topic here, but this is a great hymn, I think especially paired with Calvin Hampton’s tune, which is more graceful than IN BABILONE. Even if one is nervous about introducing it to the congregation, it could make a lovely choral piece, especially for a children’s choir.
@Doug O’Neill:
Doug, see my comment #6.
Another vote for Calvin Hampton!
@Rita Ferrone:
Indeed! His other hymn tunes deserve a serious look as well: http://www.giamusic.com/search_details.cfm?title_id=2121
By the way, going back to the original post, the choir at the Lateran looks (and sounds) just like the Cappella Sistina, and is being conducted by Mgr Palombella. I don’t think the Lateran Choir was involved?
Doug O’Neill : I suppose I should respect Anthony’s wish not to get these discussions sidetracked.
This discussion got sidetracked with the very first comment by Fr. Duncan! (Sorry about that, Paul.) So there’s no need for you to assume responsibility, Doug.
I love the Calvin Hampton tune ST. HELENA as much as anyone. But since the accompaniment has the form of a trio – with three lines of melody playing simultaneously – many organists can’t handle it. That’s basically the reason the tune was not included in Worship, 4th edition.
As to other very fine hymn tunes by Calvin Hampton, unfortunately they’re off most people’s radar these days. Michael Silhavy gave a superb presentation at this past summer’s Hymn Society meeting in New Orleans.
@Fr. Ron Krisman:
The fact that many organists cannot play a trio is a sad commentary on the education of Catholic organists. I can understand why it’s not included in Worship IV. I think Worship III was on a high aesthetic level, but it was probably more of a niche market than Worship IV, especially with the elimination of Ritual Song. That’s not a knock on your work. In fact, I have found the Hymn of the Day selections in Worship IV especially helpful, and have included them in our worship aids (don’t worry – we have the requisite copyright license!). As for Hampton’s other tunes, DE TAR is sung some, at least in the Episcopal Church, because it appears in the Hymnal 1982, and it’s another wonderful tune. The others are not so well known.
Ed Bolduc (WLP) has composed a new contemporary-style setting of the Faber text, with the addition of a refrain, “So be merciful, just as our God is merciful to us. Let there be a wideness in our mercy. Let there be a kindness in our hearts. Oh, may our lives be merciful.”
My parish has long sung the hymn by Faber to the tune In Babilone. I am looking forward to teaching Bolduc’s setting to bring a fresh perspective to that wonderful text.
@Scott Pluff:
IMHO, that screws up Faber’s great text. The hymn is about the mercy of God, and puts the honus on us to accept it. It’s not a happy song about how we are merciful. This just relegates this hymn to the vast amount of self-absorbed Catholic songs.
@Doug O’Neill:
You are missing Scott’s point. It’s not a question of either or. It’s both and. God’s mercy is not simply celebrated for its own sake. It’s also a daily challenge to us human beings to practise mercy in our own lives.
If there’s an onus involved it lies therein.
Paul’s piece is certainly very beautiful, and it is wonderful to see it being used at the Cathedral Church of Rome! I have used it at our parish as an instrumental prelude (with some improv on the verses) over the last couple of weeks, but plan to have the parish really singing it during Lent this year. Our parish is one of seven in our diocese with a designated Holy Door.
As for the Faber text, I have used this at our parish with BEACH SPRING, and it seems to work well… very pretty. I will certainly keep that hymn on my radar throughout this Jubilee year.
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