On this page, you can read all of the Propers that are appointed to be chanted during this Sunday’s Mass. That page also includes some links to hymns, motets, and cantatas associated with this Sunday. The hymns that we’ll sing this Sunday are:
Our Processional Hymn is a setting of a poem by G. K. Chesterton, first published in first appeared in the magazine, the Commonwealth, and then included in the English Hymnal (1906). Chesterton had a different tune in mind when he wrote this text: AURELIA (#396), the tune to which we sing “The Church’s one Foundation.” The tune to which we now sing the hymn is KING’S LYNN, an English traditional melody, arranged for use with these words by Ralph Vaughan Williams when they appeared in the English Hymnal (1906). It bears the name of a famous town in Norfolk. You can read my essay about Vaughan Williams’s contributions to Church music and hymnody here.
Theologian Peter Leithart has summarized the spirit of this hymn: “Few hymns offer so stark a portrait of the human condition — lies, terror, cruelty disguised as niceness, tombs of gold, lazy indifference, pride. It’s stark, and very contemporary. ‘Swords of scorn divide’: Chesterton could have been watching CNN or Fox News, or following Twitter. Chesterton doesn’t permit a jot of sentimentality. No ‘Sweet Hour of Prayer’ for him; his prayer is an anguished cry. He’s not looking for a gently wafting Spirit; Chesterton invokes divine thunder. He doesn’t want God to hold back, because he knows salvation lies on the far side of judgment: ‘Smite us and save us all.’”
There is a similar urgency expressed in our Sermon Hymn: “O God of truth.” The second stanza reads “Set up thy standard, Lord, that we who claim a heaven;t birth may march with thee to smite the lies that vex the groaning earth.” The final stanza from this hymn that isn’t included in our Hymnal continues to plea for the Refiner’s fire to purify His people: “Still smite! still burn! till naught is left But God’s own truth and love; Then, Lord, as morning dew come down, Rest on us from above.”
Our closing hymn, “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun,” is one of the 750 or so hymns written by Isaac Watts (1674 –1748). the text is part of a larger work, “Christ’s Kingdom among the Gentiles,” a paraphrase and commentary on Psalm 72. Watts describes the joy that comes as a result of God’s winnowing rule: “Blessings abound where’er he reigns . . .”.
The anthem sung by the choir during the Offertory is “Take my life and let it be.” The text is by Frances Ridley Havergal (1836–1879) and is sung often as a hymn (#402). The music to which the choir sings it this week is by Orlando Gibbons (1583–1625), and is the same tune to which our congregation sings “Lord, forever at thy side” (Hymn #451). The harmonization the choir sings in this anthem is a bit more ornate.
During Communion, the choir sings a setting of the Proper for this Sunday: “One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I will require: even that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to visit his temple” (Ps. 27:4). The vigorous setting of the text in Latin — Unam petii a Domino — is by William Byrd (1543–1623).