With heart and hands and voices;
Who wondrous things has done,
In whom this world rejoices.
Who from our mothers' arms
Has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love,
And still is ours today.
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| 1st Mother's Day |
O may this bounteous God
Through all our life be near us;
With ever joyful hearts
And blessed peace to cheer us;
And keep us still in grace
And guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills
In this world and the next.
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| Composite image: as if my daughter and I are in heaven at the same youthful age in heaven |
All praise and thanks to God
The Father now be given;
The Son, and Him Who reigns
With Them in highest heaven:
The one eternal God,
Whom earth and heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now
And shall be evermore.
--Rev. Martin Rinkart, ~1636; translated by Catherine Winkworth, 1855
Rev. Martin Rinkart was a German Lutheran pastor during the 30 Years War. The war was a series of conflicts between Roman Catholic and Protestants across Europe from 1618 to 1648. The conflict raged across much of Europe but was particularly devastating in the German provinces.
Pastor Rinkart wrote this hymn as the war was nearing its end. He had been exposed to some of its tremendous horrors, including disease, which often grows out of warfare. Still, he wrote this hopeful hymn. It is based on Wisdom of ben Sirach 50:22-24, from the Apocrypha. The Apocrypha are books that are considered Scripture by Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox but not Lutherans and other Protestants. Martin Luther had said these books were worth reading, though not canonical Scripture. Yet Rinkart wrote his hymn based on one of these passages.
This is one of my all-time favorite hymns. Sometimes it is nice to read hymns as poems. This year, it is posted for Mother's Day, initially, because of the reference to "mothers' arms."
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.jpg "American Robin & Dayblilies")
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