Pastor McCain has goaded me into commenting upon the Queen of the Chorales, which was written by the Blessed Philip Niccolai (both text and tune) and appended to his incomparable *Freudenspiegell*. The so-called King of the Chorales ("Wake, Awake!") reigns in Advent, but the Queen takes over during this season. It is the hymn of the day at Lutheran services throughout the world on Epiphany:
O Morning Star, how fair and bright!
You shine with God's own truth and light,
Aglow with grace and mercy!
Of Jacob's race, King David's son,
Our Lord and Master,
You have won
Our hearts to serve You only!
Lowly, holy!
Great and glorious,
All victorious,
Rich in blessing!
Rule and might o'er all possessing.
Come, heavenly Bridegroom, Light divine,
And deep within our hearts now shine,
There light a flame undying!
In Your one body let us be
As living branches in a tree,
Your life, our life supplying.
Now, though daily,
Earth's deep sadness
May perplex us
And distress us,
Yet with heavenly joy You bless us.
Lord, when You look on us in love,
At once there falls from God above
A ray of purest pleasure!
Your Word and Spirit,
Flesh and blood
Refresh our souls with heavenly food.
You are our dearest treasure!
Let Your mercy
Warm and cheer us!
O draw near us!
For You teach us
God's own love through You has reached us.
That's from LSB 395 and there are four more wonderful stanzas to ponder. What rings through them all is the certainty and joy of salvation in Christ. In our Lord, the light of the Father's love has shone into the world and into our hearts and filled us with a light that no sadness, no darkness, no suffering of this world can ever take away from us. When Nicolai wrote *Freudenspiegel* he was burying parishioners right and left with the plague. Every day brought new sorrow, new suffering. And yet this man of God simply overflowed with joy at the thought of what our Lord Christ has obtained for us. Suffering here cannot be compared with the joy we'll have there - and that joy is not uncertain to us, but sealed to His own in the Holy Sacraments.
Amen! Amen!
Come, Lord Jesus!
Crown of gladness!
We are yearning
For the day of Your returning!
(P.S. A musical question: I am of the opinion that Morning Star should be sung with basically treating the half notes as the quarter pulse. What do you musicians say about that???)
13 comments:
Well, I'm a PhD in music theory and therefore no musician -- just ask any music major after theory class.
My answer is, it doesn't matter. Mathematically, it's the same division of time.
For performance, though, if I were conducting, I would indeed indicate the pulse on the half notes (with a baton, real conductors use a baton, but I digress) as being easier to follow and since the mathematical result is the same whether one considers them halves and quarters or quarters and eighths (and I'm really resisting the urge to call them by their English names, quavers and such).
And too, one verse, the first, WILL be sung in German, and something in the bulletin about the stuff about this not being some relic of the past but the work of a pastor who could express the joy of the faith while his parishioners drop like flies and survivors mourn an example for all of us in any age.
Finally, it what may appear to be a blatant attempt to increase readership of my blog, your house blessings made it into my Epiphany post.
Feliz Los Tres Reyes!
I want the TLH setting back
In some German hymnals, the text was centered, thereby creating (on purpose) the image of a chalice.
Now a question: why did LSB (like LW) cut a seventh stanza?
Pr. Weedon, based on your work with Nicolai's book, how many verses does this hymn have? I found seven in TLH. There are six in LSB and in many/most other sources, one is fortunate to find even four stanzas, often I've seen only two.
So, how many verses does it have for sure? Seven?
By the way, here are all the verses, from The Lutheran Hymnal:
O Morning Star
1. How lovely shines the Morning Star! The nations see and hail afar the light in Judah shining. Thou David's Son of Jacob's race, my Bridegroom and my King of Grace, for Thee my heart is pining. Lowly, Holy, Great and glorious, Thou victorious Prince of graces, filling all the heavenly places.
2. O highest joy by mortals won, true Son of God and Mary's Son, Thou high-born King of ages! Thou art my heart's most beauteous Flower, And Thy blest Gospel's saving power My raptured soul engages. Thou mine, I Thine; Sing hosanna! Heavenly manna Tasting, eating, Whilst Thy love in songs repeating.
3. Now richly to my waiting heart, O Thou, my God, deign to impart The grace of love undying. In Thy blest body let me be, E'en as the branch is in the tree, Thy life my life supplying. Sighing, Crying. For the savor Of Thy favor; resting never, till I rest in Thee forever.
4. A pledge of peace from God I see when Thy pure eyes are turned to me to show me Thy good pleasure. Jesus, Thy Spirit and Thy Word, Thy body and Thy blood, afford My soul its dearest treasure. Keep me kindly In Thy favor, O my Savior! Thou wilt cheer me; Thy Word calls me to draw near Thee.
5. Thou, mighty Father, in Thy Son didst love me ere Thou hadst begun this ancient world's foundation. Thy Son hath made a friend of me, and when in spirit Him I see, I joy in tribulation. What bliss is this! He that liveth to me giveth life forever; nothing me from Him can sever.
6. Lift up the voice and strike the string. Let all glad sounds of music ring in God's high praises blended. Christ will be with me all the way, today, tomorrow, every day, till traveling days be ended. Sing out, ring out, triumph glorious, O victorious, chosen nation. Praise the God of your salvation.
7. Oh, joy to know that Thou, my Friend, art Lord, beginning without end, the First and Last, Eternal! And Thou at length--O glorious grace!-- Wilt take me to that holy place, the home of joys supernal. Amen, Amen!
My eleven year old announced earlier this Epiphany morning Dad, there were three wise men, I'm thinking there should be three presents.
With such a clear affinity for Biblical exegesis, I think I should speak to him about the OHM.
Fr. John,
Interesting!
Pr. McCain,
I think there were but seven. And if you look at the first word of each stanza you end up with:
WEGUHZW.
It has been suggested this is an acrostic for Wilhelm Ernst, Graf und Herr zu Waldeck. That was the name of the prince whose teacher Nicholai had been (see *The Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal* page 246).
The loss of stanza two is unfortunate. The German is perhaps a bit romantic for this day and age:
O my pearl! My worthy crown!
True God and Mary's Son,
A Highborn King!
My heart calls you a lilly,
Your sweet Gospel
Is verbal milk and honey.
O my little bloom,
Hosanna! Heavenly manna,
That we eat,
I cannot forget you! (or something like that - you German scholars can take a gander at it)
Pr Weedon,
I'm sure you know this and have recognized it often--there is no clearer indication of the unio mystica in Reformational theology than these words by Nicolai:
In Thy blest body let me be,
E'en as the branch is in the tree,
Thy life my life supplying.
Perhaps the influence of Tauler?
Better yet the influence of our Lord and His own words! But when it comes to unio mystica, the book Freudenspeigel is a gem and a half.
I don't know if any are interested, but here's my translation of the Introduction to the work:
A Mirror of Joy of the Life Eternal
By Philipp Nicholai
Introduction
As often as I call to mind the surpassing comfort of the promise of eternal life and of our heavenly home, my heart bursts out with joy and my soul rejoices in God my Savior. Think of it! There we believing Christians will behold with joyful eyes the Almighty King of glory, our only Redeemer and Savior Jesus Christ, who for us trampled down the ancient serpent! There we will gather with the holy patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. There we will see again with overflowing joy those we’ve loved on earth – our father, mother, brothers and sisters, husband and wife, children, and all our acquaintances who have blessedly fallen asleep in the Lord and have gone before us in true faith. There God will wipe all tears from our eyes and transform our mourning into dancing. He will clothe us with joy, so that our heart rejoices for all eternity and this awesome joy no one can ever take from us.
There we will enter into the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. We will be brought into the company of many thousands of angels and to the assembly of the firstborn, who are written in heaven. And in that place joy will simply overwhelm us as we contemplate the awesome gifts God has bestowed on us. To think that heaven should be ours! That everything which Christ has, is now our imperishable heavenly treasure! God himself will be our very great Reward, our Temple, our Light and our all in all. Who would trade all the world’s perishable splendor, honor, joy, and glory for what God has in store for us? Our future is that we will see and laugh together with the holy angels. Indeed, the entire heavenly host will call us blessed because we have believed in Jesus Christ and trusted His unfailing Word to the death. (17)
Whenever I think of these things, my heart and mind grow quiet, peaceful and still. I do not fret, then, even though in this world we miserable earthworms and sheep of Christ’s pasture are surrounded by temporal death in this life so that our faith and hope have to run the fiery gauntlet of the devil and his cursed followers. The children of God do not need to despair, because we wait in hope for the life that never ends. That is our future even as we pass through this valley of tears, burdened with afflictions, poverty, scorn, mockery, and privation. Yes, the life that never ends gives us hope even though we live in exile, or find ourselves widows or orphans, despised preachers, miserable creatures, poor, sick, imprisoned or scorned, treated as wretched slaves who can be abused and who suffer reverses of judgment, cry over misfortunes and receive no apparent help. Our future hope is secure although here we must be fools for Christ’s sake, an off-scouring of the people, a spectacle for men and angels.
The Lord will soon come. In His grace, He has heard already the sighs and cries of his elect, who cry out to Him day and night. He will save us in a little while and bring joy to His church after these troubles. What we now suffer for a little time in this world is just not worth the unspeakably great glory that will finally be revealed in us. You see, these troubles, which are temporary and light, are working for us an eternal, immeasurable, incomprehensible glory, the like of which no eye has seen and no ear heard and has not entered into the heart of anyone.
Oh, the inexpressible glory and unutterable joy of the eternal blessings and glory, which we will there experience! Oh, the light that shines everywhere in heaven’s joyful halls bringing blessed comfort and delight to all the children of light, who have overcome the devil, the world, and all trials through the blood of Jesus Christ! Oh, the noble and astounding Paradise, the glorious City of God and heavenly Land of Canaan, where stands God’s mountain of joy and comfort, which from flow the milk of comfort and the honey of joy, and where God is all in all! (p. 18 bottom) Oh, how wonderful a world it must be, how desirable a place, how lovely a dwelling, how precious the garden of bliss is this kingdom! It is a kingdom overflowing with every comfort, abounding in all grace, and chocked full of inexpressible joy!
There God the Father reveals His beloved and joyful countenance openly and wondrously to his elect children: angels and men. There Jesus Christ permits them to behold His glory, glory He had with the Father before the world’s foundations were laid. There in a precious and wondrous way God the Holy Spirit Himself will be seen in the Father and in the Son!
Oh, that beautiful, noble life where the holy angels praise God with joy, where the dear Patriarch, Prophets and Apostles dwell, where all pious Christians will be gathered to their people out of this false and vile world! Oh that life where our pious parents, father, mother, husband, wife, children, brothers, sisters and all our other friends who shared our faith and trust in Christ’s blood have gone before us and await our arrival with great joy and longing!
O blessed life, says Augustine, which God has prepared for those who love Him! You are indeed the true and actual life. You are a blessed life. You are a steady, sure life. You are a quiet and restful life. You are a pure and chaste life. You are a holy life. You are an eternal life rich in joy, where no one hears of death, sorrow or tribulation. You are a life without fault, without anxiety or perplexity, without decay and change, without fear, terror or crying. You are a life, where all is quiet, beautiful, delicate and desirable. You are a life where no adversary is, no one to oppose us. Where no temptation to sin is, but instead an overflowing love, a union of heart, attitude and mind and a sturdy unity, where an eternally bright light of day shines, where God will be seen face to face, and where man will taste a bread of life that banishes hunger forevermore.
O you eternal, blessed life! Thinking about entering you is my heart’s desire and joy. Your splendid bounties I desire from the heart (p. 19) and for them I ache and long. And the more I think of you and take to heart your loveliness and sweetness, the more the love, the longing and the desire for you grows in me and increases. Indeed, as often as I think of you, my heart in my body laughs for joy. And so this is my desire, that my heart, will and mind turn to you, journey to you, consider and think on your loveliness.
It is my desire, to speak about you, hear about you, write about you, talk about you and read about your eternal blessedness and heavenly glory each and every day. Further, what I have read, I want to enfold in my heart’s shrine and meditate on it, so that I dispense with and toss off the bothersome worry, danger, and tiresome toil and labor of this life – a life that is dying and fading away - and refresh myself, like a pilgrim and wanderer, with the sweet, cool desire for your life-giving blessings, so that when I go to sleep, I may rest my head upon you and in you find my peace, O everlasting life!
And so I turn with hunger to the luscious, beautiful pasture of the Sacred Scripture and diligently harvest and gather together like the green herb many verses rich in comfort. These verses I collect and read as if I ate and tasted the little herb, ruminating and thinking hard on them. When I have well considered and collected them, then I swallow them down and enclose them in my heart, so that through such tasting of their sweetness I feel that much less the bitterness of this life of exile.
O all-blessed life, you are in truth a salutary Kingdom and you know no death and have no end! In you is eternity and no change of time. There there is a day where no night comes, but endures and remains endlessly. A Christian soldier, who has overcome the world, the devil, death and all misfortune, is there a companion, brother, and comrade of the angelic Thrones and Dominions, which always praise God with joyful voice, and he sings without interruption (20) to our dear God the joyful songs of the glorious Zion and wears the crown of eternal life on his head.
O that it were possible for a man on earth, to preach and write of that which is so lovely, so glorious, so comforting, and so graceful, that the troubled and tested children of God would be aroused to blessed joy and take rich comfort! Yet how does it happen, O dear God, that we are so slow to believe your Holy Word? It witnesses to the eternal life announced to us in the prophetic and apostolic writings. O that Your Word may through the power and working of Your Holy Spirit, burn as a light in our hearts and fall like a fruitful rain, which lights upon the grass, like a dew that moistens the herb. O that like a spear or nail Your Word may pierce our heart and bring forth rich comfort and living joy to soothe and put an end to the great sadness, burdens and anxieties Your Christians suffer in this valley of tears, where they are unceasingly afflicted with sickness, sorrow, and trials of all sorts.
True it is, dear Lord God, and we must also confess: This noble sweet mystery is too deep for our reason to grasp, the joy is too great, and the glory too immense. And on the other hand, our heart is too small, our eyes too sleepy, and our understanding much too weak and too awkward, to grasp and comprehend this noble mystery, this high and great joy, and this immense glory. And although Your enlightened children in this world rightly hear and somewhat understand what they speak of, sing, and write about, yet all their knowledge and wisdom is only piece-meal, a mere bungling and childish beginning. Therefore I am in myself confounded and think: How can I speak and write of the overflowing joy of eternal life, when I cannot fully understand it, nor my thoughts reach so high? And how should what comes to me in my heart, reach my tongue and flow out from my pen?
It is indeed true that even if the likes of Pericles, Demosthenes, Cicero, Socrates or any other famous (p. 21) speaker, rightly understood this article, even with all their erudition and rhetoric they would be far to weak and to inadequate, to express it correctly and sufficiently describe it.
And yet you wish, O God, and indeed command in Your word, that we make a beginning in this world, even though piece-meal, and speak, preach, sing, and announce as much as Holy Scripture reveals about eternal life. O how blessed the people, says David, who can rejoice. Lord, they will walk in the light of Your face. They will daily be joyful in Your name and glory in Your righteousness. They will drink from the rich goods of Your house, and You quench their thirst as with a mighty river. Because with You is the fountain of life, and in Your light we see light. In Your presence is fullness of joy and at Your right hand there are pleasures forevermore. Therefore, O God, this is my earnest plan. I will sing and write. Up, psaltery and harp, I will awake early. Let the heaven rejoice and let the earth be glad, let the sea roar and all that is therein. Let the earth rejoice and all that is in it; let the trees of the forest shout for joy.
Yes, dear God, let us also rejoice, that we may heed the exhortation of Your prophet Dvid and daily rejoice in Your name and glory in Your righteousness. Yes, let us still sing of Your heavenly grace, as much as it has been revealed to us, and make known Your truth with our mouths everywhere. Yes, let us enter Your gates with thanksgiving and Your courts with praise, lauding and magnifying Your name. Bring us to Your holy mountain and to Your dwelling, Lord, our Joy and our Home, that we may see and experience that great goodness, which You have promised to those who fear You and have prepared for all who know You. (22)
Division of the Mirror of Joy in Two Sections
It is with heartfelt joy that I seek help to make a beginning and show with zeal and love from the Apostolic Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments: first, what a noble and life of overflowing joy that eternal life is which the chosen children of God enjoy there in Paradise. Then secondly, from whom this salutary Good comes, and how the Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, out of unspeakably sweet love and gentleness prepares this eternal life for us poor children of Adam and permits us to enter therein.
But I pray you, O great King of glory and Ruler of eternal life, my beloved Savior and Benefactor, my Lord Jesus Christ, by Your precious, rose-red blood that merited eternal life for us poor sinners by Your great, heart-felt love for men, and revealed such heavenly wisdom to those that fear you and bring them to know your covenant. O You who ordained Your praise also from the mouths of babes and infants, that Your wonders and Your goodness be widely lauded, announced, and spread abroad: Let me also be one of those infants and open my lips so that through the Holy Spirit’s power and work the precious article of eternal life that I may proclaim it to the glory of Your great majesty and to the blessed comfort of all burdened, sad hearts, who here on earth cry and weep, over whom the world rejoices, and who must for the sake of Your name suffer all kinds of threats, trouble, scorn, and danger. Grant to them, O God of all comfort, that this article may be their chalice of comfort, from which they imbibe the true water of life and may it be to them a salutary, refreshing and comforting drink to rejoice and to enliven their thirsting souls.
Terry,
Did you get your eleven old the other two gifts?
I'll leave the German and the theology to others, but as to the matter of musical time, it's interesting to me that I think none of the hymns in the LSB has a time signature. That's a common thing with pieces from early Baroque on back, but I wonder why they were left off of the many hymns that would have had them, being composed since time signatures got standardised. At any rate I agree with taking the half note as the unit of pulse. Tunes of this period are a kind of transition, from the chant to the regulated time of time signatures, and I think reflect a transition too from the idea that the music itself is not the point in chant but serves the expression of the text -- or so we were taught before chant was shut down -- to the more musically determined treatment of text in "classical" music.
As to the gifts, it was a blending of outright new gifts and redemption of gift cards -- a new wrinkle in the long tradition of Epiphany gifts.
wow! that introduction to Freudenspeigel is gorgeous (and precisely what I needed to hear today).
don't hide it away in this comments section. make it the (longest) Old Lutheran Quote of the Day!
Pr. Weedon,
After a while as a silent reader, let me offer a humble comment on Wie schön leuchtet.
The ommission of verse 2 in LSB is quite a blunder, IMHO, since Epiphany is truly an amplification of the Incarnation (or, to be redundant, the manifestation of what was hidden in the Incarnation).
My modest attempt at upgrading the text in TLH:
O pearl of price, Crown for us won,
True Son of God and Mary's Son,
Our heavenly King and token.
Thou art my heart's most beauteous Flower,
And Thy sweet Gospel's saving power
Is milk and honey spoken.
Thou mine, I Thine;
Sing hosanna! Heavenly manna
Tasting, eating,
Whilst Thy love in songs repeating.
I have commented elsewhere that this hymn is a true teacher of Lutheran piety and theology. But LSB has blurred that quite a bit. In some places it is not even all that Lutheran anymore.
Cf. the translation of the lines:
O Herr Jesu, mein trautes Gut,
Dein Wort, dein Geist, dein Leib und Blut
Mich innerlich erquicken!
In TLH, as in the original, the means of grace are clearly the vehicle whereby we aprehend our trautes Gut/deepest treasure. Not so in LSB, where "You are our dearest treasure" became a separate , independent sentence.
By the way, this year is the 400th anniversary of Philipp Nikolai's (1556-1608) calling to glory. I hope all true Lutherans use the occasion to praise God for the life of this blessed pastor and teacher. I am looking forward to reading your translation of his Freudenspiegel!
Rev. Gerson Flor
Georgetown, Ontario
Thank you, Pastor Flor! Your comment was enlightening.
I still don't get why none of the hymns in the LSB has a time signature.
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