{"id":5529,"date":"2010-11-28T08:01:49","date_gmt":"2010-11-28T14:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=5529"},"modified":"2010-11-28T09:23:37","modified_gmt":"2010-11-28T15:23:37","slug":"christ-comes-the-promised-peace-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2010\/11\/28\/christ-comes-the-promised-peace-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"“Christ Comes, the Promised Peace of God”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I LOVE the season of Advent.\u00a0 There is something about its longing, its visions, its sense of expectant hope that resonates very deeply within me.\u00a0 For some years now I have tried to keep this season by deepening my appreciation for contemporary hymn texts. That has involved choosing a \u201cHymn of the Week\u201d (more accurately, two hymns for the time before 17 Dec and two hymns for the time after 17 Dec) and then using them when I pray the Liturgy of the Hours.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to share with the readers of PrayTell<\/em> the four hymn texts I\u2019ve chosen to mark the four weeks of Advent this year.<\/p>\n

The hymn text I\u2019ve chosen for the First Week of Advent is \u201cChrist Comes, the Promised Peace of God\u201d by Sr. Genevieve Glen, OSB<\/a>.\u00a0 Copyrighted in 2001, the hymn text appears in Voices From the Valley: Hymn Texts with Biblical Reflections<\/em><\/a> from Oregon Catholic Press (Portland, OR: OCP Publications, 2003).<\/p>\n

Christ comes, the promised peace of God,
\nHis hands with healing filled;
\nIn him is brokenness made whole
\nAnd love from hate distilled.
\nAnd when he comes, for whom we long,
\nThen will all strife be stilled.<\/p>\n

Christ comes, the promised hand of God,
\nTo cast the veil aside
\nThat shrouds the world in bitter grief,
\nWhere none from death can hide.
\nAnd when he comes, for whom we long,
\nThen will all tears be dried.<\/p>\n

Christ comes, the promise kept by God,
\nThe faithful One, and true.
\nIn him is every hope confirmed
\nAnd every fear subdued.
\nAnd when he comes, for whom we long,
\nThen all will be made new.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As readers of this blog undoubtedly know, the first weeks of Advent in the Roman Rite pick up the themes of the last weeks of the Liturgical Year as we turn our attention to the end times and the Second Coming of Christ.\u00a0 What I love about Sr. Genevieve\u2019s text is that it doesn\u2019t revel in the destructive imagery of apocalyptic, but presents the Second Coming as just as radical a positive transformation of the present order.\u00a0 Christ\u2019s coming heals the broken, stills strife, removes the mourning veil, confirms hope, subdues fear, and makes all things new.\u00a0 The text is truly masterful in yoking material from Micah, Isaiah, Ephesians, and (especially) Revelation.<\/p>\n

The English major in me delights in the author\u2019s mastery of alliteration (promised peace, his hands with healing), rhymes both exact (sts. 1 and 2) and slant (st. 3), and strong mono-syllables (Christ comes, And when he comes, for whom we long).\u00a0 The progress of thought is very easy to follow due to the regularity of the verse structures: Christ is \u201cpromised peace,\u201d \u201cpromised hand\u201d, \u201cpromise kept;\u201d the results of his coming that \u201call strife be stilled\u201d (more alliteration), \u201call tears be dried\u201d, \u201call\u2026be made new.\u201d\u00a0 The notion of love being distilled from hate as a fine brandy is distilled from lesser wines was truly arresting.\u00a0 I even enjoyed the slightly convoluted \u201cAnd when he comes, for whom we long\u201d rather than the more straightforward \u201cAnd when the One we long for comes\u201d even though the syllable count would be the same, because the slightly stilted locution achieves the effect in language of the longing described.<\/p>\n

As deeply as I appreciate the hymn text, I am equally delighted that Sr. Genevieve recommends that this text be associated with the 86.86.86 hymn tune MORNING SONG<\/a>, a melody that I associate with the American shape-note singing tradition.\u00a0 (Although the tune appears in Sixteen Tune Settings<\/em> in Philadelphia in 1812, I think it was most widely encountered through Kentucky Harmony<\/em> of 1816.)\u00a0 I first heard this tune yoked to another text I associate with Advent: \u201cThe King Shall Come When Morning Dawns.\u201d\u00a0 There is something so plaintive yet strong about this minor modal 4\/4 tune; its spareness captures for me the power of poignancy of Advent\u2019s dreams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For some years now I have tried to keep this season by deepening my appreciation for contemporary hymn texts. I\u2019d like to share with the readers of PrayTell the four hymn texts I\u2019ve chosen to mark the four weeks of Advent this year. For the First Week of Advent, the hymn I’ve chosen is \u201cChrist Comes, the Promised Peace of God\u201d by Sr. Genevieve Glen, OSB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,22],"tags":[464,535,534],"class_list":["post-5529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liturgical-spirituality","category-music-hymns","tag-advent","tag-genevieve-glen","tag-hymn-commentary"],"yoast_head":"\n"Christ Comes, the Promised Peace of God" - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2010\/11\/28\/christ-comes-the-promised-peace-of-god\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Christ Comes, the Promised Peace of God" - Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For some years now I have tried to keep this season by deepening my appreciation for contemporary hymn texts. 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