Join our new Director of Music, Mr. Tyrone Whiting (www.tyronewhiting.com), for the fifth episode of our new Lenten Hymn Sings series! Please, do share this video with friends and family to help spread the joy of hymn singing!

These are the audio versions of the weekly videos found on YouTube.

This week, our Rector, The Reverend Jarrett Kerbel, discusses the much-loved hymn "Come Down, O Love Divine" and Tyrone discusses "We Walk by Faith and Not by Sight" and plays them with which to sing along. These can be found in the Hymnal 1982 at 516 and 209 respectively.

A new episode will be released each Friday through Lent until Holy Week, as well as a special bonus episode on Easter Day (April 4), giving us all a chance to sing at home during this difficult time.

The hymn texts are found within the transcript below.Transcript:

[Tyrone] Welcome to the fifth episode of our Lenten Hymn Sing Series, here at the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Philadelphia.In this week's episode, we welcome our Rector, The Reverend Jarrett Kerbel, who will discuss one of his favorite hymns. We encourage you to share these videos with your friends and family and help us spread the joy of music-making at a time when many are missing it from their lives. You can find all of the previous episodes in this series on our YouTube page, and we invite you to explore our website, which is updated regularly, to learn more about St. Martin's, our worship, and our outreach.

Now let us take a moment at the end of another busy week to pause, learn and reflect, on hymns, their scripture and their histories. [Jarrett] For none can guess its grace, til Love create a place wherein the Holy Spirit makes a dwelling. "Come Down O Love Divine" My wife and I had it as a hymn at our wedding and whenever I sing it I choke back tears. For me, it is one of those hymns that summons my whole body and soul into the singing - beauty and truth come together in this hymn and recall me to the immeasurable gift I have been given by God's love. We know that the best theology in the Episcopal Church is in our hymnal. "Come Down O Love Divine" is a perfect example. The hymn is a dialectic; it combines a positive evaluation of human desire: "and so the yearning strong, with which the soul will long" with the ultimate negation of our passions in the furnace of God's love for us embodied in the Holy Spirit: "O let it freely burn, till earthly passions turn to dust and ashes in its heat consuming."It combines an affirmation of the heart as a seat of spiritual receptivity: "Comforter draw near, within my heart appear, and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing" with the important insight that even our receptivity to the Holy Spirit depends on God's initiative, that is to say grace: "None can guess its grace, till love create a place, wherein the Holy Spirit makes a dwelling."When I finish singing this hymn I am filled with gratitude for all that God has made possible for my soul. With words by a 14th-century Italian poet and music by one of the most well known British composers, "Come Down O Love Divine" is one of the finest examples of the marriage between words and music. Little is known about this hymn's author, Bianco da Siena, born in Italy in around 1350. He wrote several religious poems or "Lauda" popular in the Middle Ages, and though his early career was as a wool worker, in 1367 he entered the order of Jesuati (not to be confused with the Jesuits) founded by Giovanni Colombini of Siena in 1360. This order was abolished in the 17th century by Pope Clement the Ninth.One hundred and twenty-two poems by Da Siena were published, spanning more than twenty thousand lines of verse. His text for Come Down O Love Divine was translated into English by Richard Frederick Littledale, a 19th-century Anglo-Irish clergyman and prolific writer. This hymn's publication in the 1906 English Hymnal established its popularity. The composer of this tune "Down Ampney", Ralph Vaughan Willams was editor of the same Hymnal and through his teaching, composition, conducting and editing, Vaughan Williams is still to this day one of the chief figures in English music both sacred and secular. Educated at both the Trinity College Cambridge and the Royal College of Music, Vaughan Williams' works which span everything from ballets to symphonies, and chamber music to opera, are heavily influenced by Tudor and English folk-song traditions. Most famously, this influence can be heard in his Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis. Despite his renowned Agnostic views, Vaughan Williams composed many sacred works including a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis and a Te Deum. As we come closer to the miracle of Holy Week and Easter, let us now join our voices and sing Come Down O Love Divine.1 Come down, O Love divine,

seek thou this soul of mine,

and visit it with thine own ardor glowing;

O Comforter, draw near,

within my heart appear,

and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.

2 O let it freely burn,

till earthly passions turn

to dust and ashes in its heat consuming;

and let thy glorious light

shine ever on my sight,

and clothe me round, the while my path illuming.

3 And so the yearning strong,

with which the soul will long,

shall far outpass the power of human telling;

for none can guess its grace,

till Love create a place

wherein the Holy Spirit makes a dwelling.

[Tyrone] The words for this hymn are by English churchman, Henry Alford, a theologian also known for his criticisms, poetry, and hymnody. Alford was a precocious child, and by an early age had written Latin Odes as well as a history of the Jewish people. He was later educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. The tune for this hymn is named St. Botolph for the Parish Church in Boston, Lincolnshire, in England where Gordon Slater, its composer, was organist from 1919-1927 after his service in the British Army. Born in 1896, Gordon Slater was well known for his organ, piano and choral music. He would later becoming Organist and Choirmaster at Leicester Cathedral from 1927-1931, and Lincoln cathedral from 1931-1966, supervising the latter's organ rebuild in 1960. Slater's harmonization breaks some rules of composition in that it contains some parallel movements within the vocal parts. However, it is said he intended this hymn to be sung in unison anyway!1. We walk by faith, and not by sight;

no gracious words we hear from him

who spoke as none e'er spoke;

but we believe him near.

2. We may not touch his hands and side,

nor follow where he trod;

but in his promise we rejoice;

and cry, "My Lord and God!"

3. Help then, O Lord, our unbelief;

and may our faith abound,

to call on you when you are near,

and seek where you are found:

4. that, when our life of faith is done,

in realms of clearer light

we may behold you as you are,

with full and endless sight.

Permission to podcast/stream this music is obtained from One License with license #A-701187. All rights reserved.

Production, music, and photography by Tyrone Whiting, Director of Music at Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 St. Martin's Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19118. 215.247.7466. https://www.StMartinEC.org