Jesu, the very thought of thee
Oct. 9th, 2011 02:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ancientandmodernJesus, the very thought of Thee
With sweetness fills the breast;
But sweeter far Thy face to see,
And in Thy presence rest.
Nor voice can sing, nor heart can frame,
Nor can the memory find
A sweeter sound than Thy blest Name,
O Saviour of mankind!
O hope of every contrite heart,
O joy of all the meek,
To those who fall, how kind Thou art!
How good to those who seek!
But what to those who find? Ah, this
Nor tongue nor pen can show;
The love of Jesus, what it is,
None but His loved ones know.
Jesus, our only joy be Thou,
As Thou our prize will be;
Jesus be Thou our glory now,
And through eternity.
O Jesus, King most wonderful
Thou Conqueror renowned,
Thou sweetness most ineffable
In Whom all joys are found!
When once Thou visitest the heart,
Then truth begins to shine,
Then earthly vanities depart,
Then kindles love divine.
O Jesus, light of all below,
Thou fount of living fire,
Surpassing all the joys we know,
And all we can desire.
Jesus, may all confess Thy Name,
Thy wondrous love adore,
And, seeking Thee, themselves inflame
To seek Thee more and more.
Thee, Jesus, may our voices bless,
Thee may we love alone,
And ever in our lives express
The image of Thine own.
O Jesus, Thou the beauty art
Of angel worlds above;
Thy Name is music to the heart,
Inflaming it with love.
Celestial Sweetness unalloyed,
Who eat Thee hunger still;
Who drink of Thee still feel a void
Which only Thou canst fill.
O most sweet Jesus, hear the sighs
Which unto Thee we send;
To Thee our inmost spirit cries;
To Thee our prayers ascend.
Abide with us, and let Thy light
Shine, Lord, on every heart;
Dispel the darkness of our night;
And joy to all impart.
Jesus, our love and joy to Thee,
The virgin’s holy Son,
All might and praise and glory be,
While endless ages run.
We sang Stanford's setting of the first verse of this during communion this morning, and all the way home I was frustrated because I couldn't remember the tune of the hymn version. It appears that there's a reason for this: it doesn't really have a tune. I went through the hymnbooks. Common Praise: St Agnes or Kilmarnock. New English Hymnal: St Botolph. Hymns Old and New: Metzler's Redhead, or St Agnes again. I asked my partner what he thought. 'While shepherds watched'. I assume he meant Winchester Old, though goodness knows why one would willingly choose the dullest tune in the book. In short, we're playing Common Metre Bingo, which leads inexorably to Ilkley Moor or The House of the Rising Sun.
Youtube favours St Agnes:
Though here's a hymn-anthem version of St Botolph:
On the whole, people do not seem to be in favour of singing more than the first five verses of St Bernard's fifteen. (The translation is by Edward Caswall, one of many in Lyra Catholica.) Usually I am not in favour of cutting verses; it so often renders the hymn nonsense, but this version is practical and still leaves us with a self-contained thought-process.
Seek and ye shall find, we are told, and the impression one sometimes gets is that seeking and finding are the same thing: finding is inevitable as soon as one starts seeking. Here, Bernard draws a distinction between seeking and finding. The act of seeking is worthwhile in itself. It is sweet to think of Jesus. In thinking, one has already set out along the path that leads to seeing.
But one does not necessarily see. One does not always find. It's not something that we can force to happen, no matter how devoutly we think or how hard we seek. If we see, if we find, it's indescribable; fleeting glimpses of the glorious reality that underlies what we see around us. We look forward to an eternity where the seeing and the finding are perpetual; in the mean time, we think and we seek.
With sweetness fills the breast;
But sweeter far Thy face to see,
And in Thy presence rest.
Nor voice can sing, nor heart can frame,
Nor can the memory find
A sweeter sound than Thy blest Name,
O Saviour of mankind!
O hope of every contrite heart,
O joy of all the meek,
To those who fall, how kind Thou art!
How good to those who seek!
But what to those who find? Ah, this
Nor tongue nor pen can show;
The love of Jesus, what it is,
None but His loved ones know.
Jesus, our only joy be Thou,
As Thou our prize will be;
Jesus be Thou our glory now,
And through eternity.
O Jesus, King most wonderful
Thou Conqueror renowned,
Thou sweetness most ineffable
In Whom all joys are found!
When once Thou visitest the heart,
Then truth begins to shine,
Then earthly vanities depart,
Then kindles love divine.
O Jesus, light of all below,
Thou fount of living fire,
Surpassing all the joys we know,
And all we can desire.
Jesus, may all confess Thy Name,
Thy wondrous love adore,
And, seeking Thee, themselves inflame
To seek Thee more and more.
Thee, Jesus, may our voices bless,
Thee may we love alone,
And ever in our lives express
The image of Thine own.
O Jesus, Thou the beauty art
Of angel worlds above;
Thy Name is music to the heart,
Inflaming it with love.
Celestial Sweetness unalloyed,
Who eat Thee hunger still;
Who drink of Thee still feel a void
Which only Thou canst fill.
O most sweet Jesus, hear the sighs
Which unto Thee we send;
To Thee our inmost spirit cries;
To Thee our prayers ascend.
Abide with us, and let Thy light
Shine, Lord, on every heart;
Dispel the darkness of our night;
And joy to all impart.
Jesus, our love and joy to Thee,
The virgin’s holy Son,
All might and praise and glory be,
While endless ages run.
We sang Stanford's setting of the first verse of this during communion this morning, and all the way home I was frustrated because I couldn't remember the tune of the hymn version. It appears that there's a reason for this: it doesn't really have a tune. I went through the hymnbooks. Common Praise: St Agnes or Kilmarnock. New English Hymnal: St Botolph. Hymns Old and New: Metzler's Redhead, or St Agnes again. I asked my partner what he thought. 'While shepherds watched'. I assume he meant Winchester Old, though goodness knows why one would willingly choose the dullest tune in the book. In short, we're playing Common Metre Bingo, which leads inexorably to Ilkley Moor or The House of the Rising Sun.
Youtube favours St Agnes:
Though here's a hymn-anthem version of St Botolph:
On the whole, people do not seem to be in favour of singing more than the first five verses of St Bernard's fifteen. (The translation is by Edward Caswall, one of many in Lyra Catholica.) Usually I am not in favour of cutting verses; it so often renders the hymn nonsense, but this version is practical and still leaves us with a self-contained thought-process.
Seek and ye shall find, we are told, and the impression one sometimes gets is that seeking and finding are the same thing: finding is inevitable as soon as one starts seeking. Here, Bernard draws a distinction between seeking and finding. The act of seeking is worthwhile in itself. It is sweet to think of Jesus. In thinking, one has already set out along the path that leads to seeing.
But one does not necessarily see. One does not always find. It's not something that we can force to happen, no matter how devoutly we think or how hard we seek. If we see, if we find, it's indescribable; fleeting glimpses of the glorious reality that underlies what we see around us. We look forward to an eternity where the seeing and the finding are perpetual; in the mean time, we think and we seek.