Fourth Sunday after Trinity

Propers
Psalms from the Daily Office
Motets and cantatas
John Keble, “Fourth Sunday after Trinity”
Christopher Wordsworth, Hymn for Fourth Sunday after Trinity

[Psalm 18] The Lord is my stony rock, and my defence: my Saviour, my god, and my might.

Psalms from the Daily Office

Below are plainsong renditions of the Psalms as published in the Saint Dunstan’s Plainsong Psalter.

SUNDAY

MONDAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

Motets and cantatas for this Sunday

Alessandro Grandi, Illumina oculos meos
Orlande de Lassus, Illumina oculos meos
Henry Desmarets, Illumina oculos meos
Johann Sebastian Bach, Ein ungefärbt Gemüte (BWV 24, “An unstained character”)
Johann Sebastian Bach, Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ (BWV 177, “I call to you, Lord Jesus Christ”)

Alessandro Grandi, Illumina oculos meos

Today’s Offertory is a verse taken from Psalm 13. Here is that verse and several of the following verse which are often included in musical settings.

Illumina oculos meos, ne unquam obdormiam in morte,
Lighten mine eyes, that I sleep not in death.
Ne quando dicat inimicus meus, Praevalui adversus eum.
Lest my enemy say “I have prevailed against him.”
Qui tribulant me exultabunt si motus fuero.
For if I be cast down, they that trouble me will rejoice at it.
Ego autem in misericordia tua speravi, exultavit cor meum in salutary tuo.
But my trust is in thy mercy, and my heart is joyful in thy salvation.
Cantabo Domino qui bona tribuit mihi et psallam nomini Domini altissimi.
I will sing of the Lord, because he hath dealt so lovingly with me: yea, I will praise the Name of the Lord most highest.

The first of three settings of this text presented below is by Alessandro Grandi (1590–1630). A native of Venice, Grandi may have studied with one of the most celebrated of Venetian composers, Giovanni Gabrieli (c.1554-1612). For a time he served at St. Mark’s Cathedral as an assistant to Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643).

Grandi’s setting of Illumina oculos meos is sung here by counter-tenor Henri Ledroit, accompanied by Philippe Pierlot on viola da gamba and organist Bernard Foccroulle.

Orlande de Lassus, Illumina oculos meos

The setting of this Offertory by Orlande de Lassus (1532–1594) features only the first two lines of the text above. Each of the four a cappella voices enters in turn singing the word illumina (“lighten”), dramatically jumping up a full octave (in musical imagery, ascending often suggests light, descending, darkness). In the performance embedded beow, the Lumina Vocal Ensemble is guided toward the light by musical director Anna Pope. (The score is here if you care to follow along.)

Henry Desmarets, Illumina oculos meos

French baroque composer Henry Desmarets (1661-1741) was best known for his operas. Initially trained in church choirs, he also composed a number of sacred choral works. Below, tenor Jean-Paul Fouchécourt is accompanied by Les Violons du Roy conducted by Christopher Jackson.

John Keble, “Fourth Sunday after Trinity”

The following poem is from John Keble’s The Christian Year (1827).

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For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by the reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
Romans viii 19–22.

It was not then a poet’s dream,
   An idle vaunt of song,
Such as beneath the moon’s soft gleam
   On vacant fancies throng;

Which bids us see in heaven and earth,
   In all fair things around,
Strong yearnings for a blest new birth
   With sinless glories crowned;

Which bids us hear, at each sweet pause
   From care and want and toil,
When dewy eve her curtain draws
   Over the day’s turmoil,

In the low chant of wakeful birds,
   In the deep weltering flood,
In whispering leaves, these solemn words —
   “God made us all for good.”

All true, all faultless, all in tune
   Creation’s wondrous choir,
Opened in mystic unison
   To last till time expire.

And still it lasts; by day and night,
   With one consenting voice,
All hymn Thy glory, Lord, aright,
   All worship and rejoice.

Man only mars the sweet accord
   O’erpowering with “harsh din”
The music of Thy works and word,
   Ill matched with grief and sin.

Sin is with man at morning break,
   And through the livelong day
Deafens the ear that fain would wake
   To Nature’s simple lay.

But when eve’s silent footfall steals
   Along the eastern sky,
And one by one to earth reveals
   Those purer fires on high,

When one by one each human sound
   Dies on the awful ear,
Then Nature’s voice no more is drowned,
   She speaks, and we must hear.

Then pours she on the Christian heart
   That warning still and deep,
At which high spirits of old would start
   E’en from their Pagan sleep.

Just guessing, through their murky blind
   Few, faint, and baffling sight,
Streaks of a brighter heaven behind,
   A cloudless depth of light.

Such thoughts, the wreck of Paradise,
   Through many a dreary age,
Upbore whate’er of good and wise
   Yet lived in bard or sage:

They marked what agonizing throes
   Shook the great mother’s womb:
But Reason’s spells might not disclose
   The gracious birth to come:

Nor could the enchantress Hope forecast
   God’s secret love and power;
The travail pangs of Earth must last
   Till her appointed hour.

The hour that saw from opening heaven
   Redeeming glory stream,
Beyond the summer hues of even,
   Beyond the mid-day beam.

Thenceforth, to eyes of high desire,
   The meanest thing below,
As with a seraph’s robe of fire
   Invested, burn and glow:

The rod of Heaven has touched them all,
   The word from Heaven is spoken:
“Rise, shine, and sing, thou captive thrall;
   Are not thy fetters broken?

“The God Who hallowed thee and blest,
   Pronouncing thee all good—
Hath He not all thy wrongs redrest,
   And all thy bliss renewed?

“Why mourn’st thou still as one bereft,
   Now that th’ eternal Son
His blessèd home in Heaven hath left
   To make thee all His own?”

Thou mourn’st because sin lingers still
   In Christ’s new heaven and earth;
Because our rebel works and will
   Stain our immortal birth:

Because, as Love and Prayer grow cold,
   The Saviour hides His face,
And worldlings blot the temple’s gold
   With uses vile and base.

Hence all thy groans and travail pains,
   Hence, till thy God return,
In Wisdom’s ear thy blithest strains,
   Oh Nature, seem to mourn.

Christopher Wordsworth, Hymn for Fourth Sunday after Trinity

The following hymn is from Bp. Christopher Wordsworth’s The Holy Year; or Hymns for Sundays and Holy Days throughout the Year (1862).

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Hymn 64.

Fourth Sunday after Trinity

The Creation, represented in the Epistle of the Week as travailing in pain for a more glorious state of existence after the General Resurrection.

1.
O Lord, how alter’d is the face
     Of this World, once so fair
The lands where Eden’s garden bloom’d
     Now thorns and thistles bear.

2.
The Ground, where once unbidden fruits
     Enrich’d the fertile field,
Now hardly will with painful toil
     A scanty produce yield.

3.
Earth, once made beautiful for man,
     Was blighted by his Fall;
And now with sympathizing grief
     Weeps at his funeral.

4.
But lo! the second Adam, Christ,
     A blessed hope displays,
That He will Adam’s fallen race
     To bliss and glory raise.

5.
O Lord, Thy Gospel reaches down
     From Man to suffering Earth;
She travails now in pangs and throes
     For that Day’s glorious Birth.

6.
That Birth through Death will her upraise
     From sorrow and distress;
New Heavens and Earth will then be bom,
     “Where dwelleth righteousness.”

7.
The Heavens and Earth, when cleansed by fire
     From all things that defile.
Will on that Resurrection morn
     Rise from their funeral pile.

8.
Who shall the future glories tell
     Of that fair Paradise?
Where God says little, they who are
     Most silent, are most wise.

9.
To God Triune be thanks and praise
     For what His Word reveals;
Nor let Him less be glorified
     For what that Word conceals.

Amen.