Eighth Sunday after Trinity

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

[Psalm 34] O taste and see how gracious the Lord is: blessed is he that putteth his trust in him.

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

John Goss, O taste and see

Heinrich Isaac, Gustate et videte

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Populum humilem salvum facies, Domine

Ralph Vaughan Williams, O taste and see

Johann Sebastian Bach, Es ist dir gesagt, Mensch, was gut ist, “You have been told, mankind, what is good” (BWV 45)

Johann Sebastian Bach, Erforsche mich, Gott, und erfahre mein Herz, “Search me, God, and know my heart” (BWV 136)

Johann Sebastian Bach, Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält, “If the Lord God does not stay with us” (BWV 178)

John Keble, “Eighth Sunday after Trinity”

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

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It is the man of God, who was
disobedient unto the word of the Lord.
1 King xiii. 26.

Prophet of God, arise and take
With thee the words of wrath divine,
     The scourge of Heaven, to shake
     O’er yon apostate shrine.

Where Angels down the lucid stair
Came hovering to our sainted sires
     Now, in the twilight, glare
     The heathen’s wizard fires.

Go, with thy voice the altar rend,
Scatter the ashes, be the arm,
     That idols would befriend,
     Shrunk at thy withering charm.

Then turn thee, for thy time is short,
But trace not o’er the former way,
     Lest idol pleasures court
     Thy heedless soul astray.

Thou know’st how hard to hurry by,
Where on the lonely woodland road
     Beneath the moonlight sky
     The festal warblings flowed;

Where maidens to the Queen of Heaven
Wove the gay dance round oak or palm,
     Or breathed their vows at even
     In hymns as soft as balm.

Or thee, perchance, a darker spell
Enthralls: the smooth stones of the flood,
     By mountain grot or fell,
     Pollute with infant’s blood;

The giant altar on the rock,
The cavern whence the timbrel’s call
     Affrights the wandering flock:—
     Thou long’st to search them all.

Trust not the dangerous path again—
O forward step and lingering will!
     O loved and warned in vain!
     And wilt thou perish still?

Thy message given, thine home in sight,
To the forbidden feast return?
     Yield to the false delight
     Thy better soul could spurn?

Alas, my brother! round thy tomb
In sorrow kneeling, and in fear,
     We read the Pastor’s doom
     Who speaks and will not hear.

The grey-haired saint may fail at last,
The surest guide a wanderer prove;
     Death only binds us fast
     To the bright shore of love.

Christopher Wordsworth, Two hymns for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity

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

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Hymn 68.

EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Disobedience and its punishment, as seen in the history of the Prophet from Judah, in the First Lesson of this Morning, contrasted with Obedience and its rewards, as seen in the history of the faithful Prophet Elijah, and also of the faithful Widow of Zarephath, or Sarepta, in the First Lesson for the Evening; and as enforced by our Lord’s words in the Gospel of the Week, “Beware of false Prophets,” and “Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of hea’ven, but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven.”

1.
Not gifts of Prophecy can save,
     Nor courage be our stay;
Lord, make us doers of Thy Word,
     O teach us to obey.

2.
If God command thee to abstain
     From royal Bethel’s fare,
Taste not its food, though Angel hands
     Should spread a table there.

3.
The obedient Seer from Jordan’s stream
     To trickling Cherith fled;
Him there the Brook, in time of drought,
     And hungry Ravens fed.

4.
Go to Zidonian Zarephath,
     To Jezebel’s domain;
Though Zidon’s Queen may seek thy life,
     A Widow shall sustain.

5.
O Widow, fear not, but God’s Seer
     With thy last morsel feed;
Who in His Prophets gives to God,
     Shall never suffer need.

6.
Thy meal exhaustless is; to thee
     Rivers of oil shall flow ;
Obedience is thine Olive-yard,
     Faith harvests can bestow.

7.
By Faith, and by Obedience
     God’s best rewards are won ;
Thou dost a Prophet feed, and he
     Restores to thee a son.

8.
Thy pious service is approved
     And blest by love divine ;
O Zarephath, thy Widow’s name
     Shall in Christ’s Gospel shine.

9.
To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
     For Faith and Love we pray ;
Thee ever may our voices praise
     And may our hearts obey.

Amen.

Hymn 69.

ANOTHER HYMN FOR THE EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

History of Elijah the Prophet, as described in the First Lesson of the Afternoon of the Eighth Sunday, and in the two First Lessons of the Ninth Sunday after Trinity.

1.
“The Lord is God! the Lord is God!”
     Lord, make us true to Thee,
Make us in courage and in zeal
     Like to Elijah be !

2.
If Thou dost bid us leave our home,
     And go to Cherith’s rill,
Or Zarephath, O speed us forth
     Obedient to Thy will.

3.
Help us in dark and evil days
     To see Thee ever nigh.
And ever for the Truth to fight
     Of God the Lord most High.

4.
Though Baal’s Priests four hundred be,
     And we be left alone,
Yet on our Carmels let us stand,
     And Thee, Thee only, own.

5.
“The Lord is God! the Lord is God!’
     The astonish’d People cry,
When water was lick’d up by fire
     Down shooting from the sky.

6.
And how may hearts by us be mov’d?
     Where is our strength, O where?
Thou say’st, that ‘righteous men prevail
     By earnest, fervent prayer.”

7.
Elijah’s prayer reviv’d the Child,
     And brought that fire from high,
Elijah’s prayer shut up the heaven,
     His Prayer unseal’d the sky.

8.
Not in fierce fires, or furious winds,
     Which rocks and mountains tear,
But in the still small voice art Thou
     Of inly-breathing Prayer.

9.
O therefore, give us grace to pray;
     And when beneath the shade
Of earth’s dark junipers we faint,
     Send Angels to our aid.

10.
Strengthen’d by food of grace divine
     May we to Horeb come,
Pilgrims through this world’s wilderness
     Travelling to Heav’n, our home.

11.
So, when our earthly race is run.
     May we to glory rise.
Caught up, to meet our coming Lord,
     In chariots of the skies.

12.
Transfigur’d on Thy holy hill
     May we in glory shine,
And ever see Thy blessed face,
     And be for ever Thine!

13.
To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
     One God, in Persons Three,
Dominion, Adoration, Praise,
     And Glory, ever be!

Amen.