A God who seeks
March 1, 2008, 8:32 am
Posted by Joseph A. Komonchak
Further to the point that, though lacking nothing, God seeks:
He sought you before you sought him, and he found you so that you might find him.
[Quaesivit vos antequam quaereretis eum, et invenit vos ut inveniretis eum.] (Augustine, Enar. in Psalmum 138, 14)
My choir sang this hymn a few weeks ago. I told them it was like something out of St. Augustine. (I may have also used the expression “prevenient grace.”)
I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek him, seeking me;
It was not I that found, O Saviour true,
No, I was found of thee.
Thou didst reach forth thy hand and mine enfold;
I walked and sank not on the storm-vexed sea,—
‘Twas not so much that I on thee took hold,
As thou, dear Lord, on me.
I find, I walk, I love, but, O the whole
Of love is but my answer, Lord, to thee;
For thou wert long beforehand with my soul,
Always thou lovedst me.
Recently a Mennonite (so one of my blog readers, a Mennonite, tells me) wrote a haunting tune for this text called FAITH. I can’t find it online but it is awesome.
Kathy: Who wrote this lovely hymn?
Fr. Komonchak, the author of the late-19th c. text is anonymous.
At a hymn seminar last summer, the presenter said, rightly, I think, that hymns rarely express paradoxes. He said the reason is because the form is too short. Not only are the lines ordinarily very brief, but convention holds that each line must come to the end of a thought, rather than running a phrase headlong into the next line. The hymn runs past swiftly in time, and must mean something even upon an initial reading (i.e. singing), so the writer who wants to express a complex thought must work very hard or be really inspired.
This hymn expresses a difficult theological concept, in a devotional manner, using a tremendously apt image from scripture (vs. 2), without misstepping theologically. All in plain Anglo-saxon English. I’m guessing that the key inspirational moment must have been when s/he thought of the words “afterward” and “beforehand”.
I noticed this morning that in the Gospel for tomorrow, the man born blind does not ask Jesus to be healed. Jesus simply acts. He reaches out to the man who is born blind and thus does not know what illumination would give him. God acts first.
Is it in fact true that hymns rarely express paradoxes? What of Herbert and Donne? Wasn’t the famous metaphysical “conceit” a kind of paradox?
I didn’t realize that Herbert and Donne wrote hymns as such, although I know that Herbert’s poems have often been set to music.
What is the famous metaphysical conceit? (Sorry, I just don’t know this.)
I think paradox can be done, but rarely is. I do think it is hard to find in a hymnal. One of the best in common use: “The head that once was crowned with thorns is crowned with glory now,” printed here with a wealth of tunes: http://www.stempublishing.com/hymns/ss/285
I’ve been trying to think of how to say the following, and am still not sure this is successful. There are certain optical illusions in the spiritual life. One is that during a conversion, I feel as though I’m turning toward God. But afterwards I realize that this was illusory and that God sought me.
The Gospels as Peter says often show the Lord coming to rescue someone who has not asked to be rescued, but some show the person coming to the Lord. But to come in “faith,” didn’t God have to be the motive force of their coming?
Augustine was striving, rather sweatily, to follow God when the child’s voice sang to him in the garden. So he met God, graced, at the time God met him.
Kathy:
A rapid introduction to the “metaphysical conceit” can be found at:
http://spider.georgetowncollege.edu/english/allen/donne2.htm
It’s an unexpected metaphor, often extravagant or paradoxical. “Nor ever chaste Except thou ravish me,” is an example from Donne.
And how about Herbert’s “Such a life as killeth death,” from “Come My Way, My Truth, My Life,” set to music and sung in churches.
Here are several from Augustine–I don’t’ see why these couldn’t be put to music in a hymn:
Life came down in order to be killed;
bread came down in order to hunger;
the path came down in order to become weary on its journey;
the spring came down in order to thirst.
. Descendit vita, ut occideretur; descendit panis, ut esuriret; descendit via, ut in itinere lassaretur; descendit fons, ut sitiret:
Life came down in order to be killed;
bread came down in order to hunger;
the path came down in order to become weary on its journey;
the spring came down in order to thirst.
That is awesome.
I guess I have written a couple of hymns that use paradox, much less well than either Augustine or Herbert, obviously. One says “The Greatest has become the Least/ Assessing gain as loss.” and another goes
O taste and you will see the goodness of the Lord:
Humanity, divinity, the body and the blood.
To those who would be filled, this food is life indeed.
To give it Life Himself was killed and we from death are freed.
O worthy is the Lamb, our slain and risen Lord,
The son of Mary, God and man, our Eucharist adored.
Not a great or even decent poem, obviously, but it’s kinda fun if you sing it to this tune: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/o/b/oblmsoul.htm
Sorry to be so far astray, but today’s Gospel brings to mind this poem, Easter Day, by Henry Vaughan:
Thou, whose sad heart, and weeping head lyes low,
Whose Cloudy brest cold damps invade,
Who never feel´st the Sun, nor smooth´st thy brow,
But sitt´st oppressed in the shade,
Awake, awake,
And in his Resurrection partake,
Who on this day (that thou might´st rise as he,)
Rose up, and cancell´d two deaths due to thee.
Awake, awake; and, like the Sun, disperse
All mists that would usurp this day;
Where are thy Palmes, thy branches and thy verse?
Hosanna! heark; why doest thou stay?
Arise, arise,
And with his healing bloud anoint thine Eys,
Thy inward Eys; his bloud will cure thy mind,
Whose spittle only could restore the blind.
Also came across this interesting MA thesis: http://etd-submit.etsu.edu/etd/theses/available/etd-0720101-152602/unrestricted/ackera0808a.pdf
(Okay, that’s enough googling for one day!)