Oh! I know that hymn, with a different set of lyrics. It’s on the tip of my tongue and I can’t quite get it out. Does anybody know the hymn (or hymns) I’m trying to think of?
Anyway, we have it here, requested by Elder Mike–Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones, from St. Ninnian’s Cathedral in Perth, Scotland.
Historical Note: St. Ninnian goes back to a time before there was a Scotland or an England.
Well, I’ve tried everything else. They’ve cut me off from half my readership (maybe more), WordPress denies there’s any problem, and there seems to be jack-all nothing I can do about it… So I guess I can do pretty much anything that occurs to me: when you open the blog with one view–yes, just one–on your Home Page, you just can’t do much worse.
I propose, for the rest of the year, to post at least one Christmas hymn and one Easter hymn every month, until Christmas comes around again. It might look like of odd in July or August… but it may be the Lord will like that kind of oddness.
And again, why not? It wouldn’t hurt to have these two most special holidays in mind all throughout the year.
This was the first thing I posted today, but the computer and WordPress decided it’d be fun if they made me do all the work and then made the post disappear without a trace. So I’m trying again.
All Through the Night, old Welsh melody, performed by Siobhan Owen at St. German’s Church in Cardiff, Wales.
If I can get things to work around here, I want to post something about the life of St. Germanus–it’s quite inspiring. I might have to bump some nooze to fit it in, but I doubt anyone will complain about that.
A Christmas hymn, in March? Well, why not?
Isaac Watts wrote Joy to the World in 1719, and as you can see, it’s still going strong. Here we have a modern rendition of it by Pentatonics. Again, why not?
I’m saving Easter hymns for a little later.
There’s a tradition that he was martyred by a saw… but who knows?
In Luke 6:15 and Acts 1:13, he’s called “Simon Zelotes.” In Matthew 10:4, he’s “Simon the Canaanite”–which seems a rather odd nickname for a First Century Jew. But either way, he’s one of Christ’s original 12 disciples and therefor an apostle. But the Bible tells us almost nothing about him.
And get this: he was neither a Zealot nor a Canannite (whatever a “Canaanite” was at that late date in history). He is tagged by a Hebrew word that sounds like “Canaanite,” and another word that means not “a Zealot,” but simply “zealous.” The Zealots didn’t really pick up steam until some decades after the Crucifixion; and their movement culminated in the Romans destroying the Temple and leveling Jerusalem.
There are church traditions, etc., involving St. Simon, but there’s really nothing outside the Bible. He has no lines to speak, no teachings to impart. But he was a disciple, a companion of Our Lord Jesus Christ–isn’t that enough?
I learned in Sunday school that Simon was a Zealot. This was almost certainly wrong. The Zealots were an organization similar to the French Resistance in World War II, dedicated to freeing their country from Roman domination…“by any means necessary.” Their policy proved to be suicidal.
My pal Pastor Mark once said to me, “The Bible tells us everything we need to know, but it doesn’t tell us everything we want to know.” Guess he was right.
The music for this hymns, Christ Triumphant, Ever Reigning, was composed in 1948; so it’s only a year older than me. I wish I could tell you who was singing it, but YouTube didn’t provide that information. We’ve got the lyrics, so you can sing it, too.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Usually I wait till evening to post a critter video. Today, at the rate I’m going, this blog won’t make it to the evening.
But ain’t domestication grand? Sometimes it seems they forget all that cats and dogs business and just melt into one happy family.
But I speak as someone who used to have a cat, a dog, and an iguana cuddled up together on his bed.
No hymn requests today so far, so here’s one I’ve picked: I Sing the Mighty Power of God, written by Isaac Watts in 1715 and still going strung, sung here by the Mountain Anthems. Background sets by God the Father.
The Psalms were originally written to be sung; so somebody at Wells Cathedral, England, made a musical arrangement for the 23rd Psalm, and here’s the cathedral choir singing it.
A hymn request from Phoebe–Do You Know My Jesus? I chose this rendition by four students at Fountainview Academy.
We live in a dark age; but there will always be light in Our Lord Jesus Christ.