Monday 18 September 2006

In Honour of St Joseph


My new parish of Our Lady and St Joseph, Kingsland, has a proud (though largely forgotten) boast - when the original church was opened on 29 September 1856, the great hymn writer and Founder of the London Oratory, Fr Frederick William Faber, wrote the following for the occasion in honour of our heavenly patron (and patron of a happy death):

St Joseph, Our Father

There are many saints above
Who love us with true love,
Many angels ever nigh;
But Joseph! none there be,
Oh none, who love like thee, -
Dearest of Saints! be near us when we die!

Thou wert the guardian of our Lord,
Foster-father of the Word,
Who in thine arms did lie:
If we his brothers be,
We are foster-sons to thee, -
Dearest of saints! be with us when we die!

Thou wert Mary's earthly guide,
For ever at her side,
Oh! for her sake hear our cry;
For we follow in thy way,
Loving Mary as we may: -
Dearest of saints! be with us when we die!

Thou to Mary's virgin love
Wert the image of the Dove,
Who was her Spouse on high;
Bring us gifts from Him, dear Saint!
Bring us comfort when we faint;
Dearest of saints! be with us when we die!

Thou wert a shadow thrown,
From the Father's summit lone,
Over Mary's life to lie;
Oh be thy shadow cast
O'er our present and our past;
Dearest of saints! be with us when we die!

Sadly o'er the desert sand,
Into Egypt's darksome land,
As an exile didst thou fly;
And we are exiles too,
With a world to travel through;
Dearest of saints! be with us when we die!

When thy gentle years were run,
On the bosom of thy Son,
Like an infant didst thou lie;
Oh by thy happy death,
In that tranquil Nazareth,
Dearest of saints! be with us when we die!

Granted, it doesn't exactly merit a place in The Oxford Book of English Verse - but it would be good to revive it in the parish for which it was originally written. Can any enterprising reader suggest a hymn tune to which it could be sung (preferably not Shadows of Day, if at all possible). Thank you!

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
I have just had an email from a friend on the inside of the BBC, about Panorama on Sunday evening, which made some serious allegations about Pope Benedict, amongst my congregation people seem to believe what was said.

"There were 11 comments, 8 of which were along the lines of 'disgraceful
and offensive' and 3 of which were along the lines of 'wonderful and
marvellous'.
I guess that's a pretty average number of phonecalls for Panorama - but
the comments were fairly detailed, rather that just being 'Unhappy' as
usual. "

Complaints are taken very seriously, the BBC reckon that they represent 100,000 people who are very concerned but haven't bothered to write, email or phone so if you were thinking about it why not do it, back up the Bishops.
The email address is:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/

Fr Raymond Blake
rlblake@tiscali.co.uk

12:13 pm  

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