Hymn Blog - May 10, 2009

This is Mother’s Day, celebrated as Christian Family Sunday in the United Church. The gospel lection is John 15:1-8, declaring Jesus as “the true vine.” You might look for echoes of these themes in today’s hymn texts.

 

VU387 – Loving Spirit. The text is by Shirley Erena Murray, a New Zealand hymn poet whose beautiful and thought provoking texts appear in Voices United (12 texts) and More Voices (6 texts). This hymn, written in 1986, is one of her first to be published and widely used. She describes it as “a simple approach to relational imagery for God.” The tune is from a 17^th century German Catholic Marienlieder.

 

MV 41 – O Beautiful Gaia. See last week’s blog.

 

Song of Community. Written by Carolyn McDade (see last week’s blog MV 41) this song is found on McDade’s CD Rain Upon Dry Land (1984).

 

VU 952 – Our prayer response comes from the Iona Community, copyright in 1987.

 

MV145 – Draw the Circle Wide. This hymn is by Gordon Light (see April 26 blog, VU 166). The arrangement is by Michael Bloss, Director of Music Ministry at Dublin St. United Church, Guelph.

 

VU962 – This beautiful sung blessing is by Miriam Therese Winter, Professor of Liturgy, Worship, Spirituality, and Feminist Studies at Hartford Seminary. A Medical Mission Sister, Winter has been writing and publishing songs and hymns since Vatican II in the 1960’s. Her early recordings with The Medical Mission Sisters were widely popular, bringing a fresh, dynamic musical context to bible stories and simple songs of faith. Many of her later texts bring feminist theological perspectives to our hymnody, in beautiful poetry and melody. “Mother and God” (VU 280) and “Wellspring of Wisdom” (VU287) are two of her hymns in Voices United which we have frequently used at TSP.