Posted on 12/18/2015 7:26:29 AM PST by Salvation
For my money, the best Advent hymn ever is Veni Redemptor Gentium (Come Redeemer of the Nations), written by St. Ambrose in the 4th century. It is known more widely by the title "Come Thou Redeemer of the Earth." Sadly, it is not widely sung in Catholic parishes. Most Catholics I've asked have never even heard of it.
One of the beautiful things about the ancient Latin hymns is how richly theological they are. Not content to merely describe an event, they give sweeping theological vision and delve into its more hidden mysteries.
So here we are in Advent, and Jesus is coming. Get ready! Well, yes, but He's not just coming; He's redeeming, dying, rising, ascending, and reigning at the Father's right hand! But how can you get all that into an Advent hymn? Well, just below you can read the text and see.
Full vision – For now, ponder the theological point that hymns like this make: no act of God can be reduced merely to the act in itself. Everything God does is part of a sweeping master plan to restore all things in Christ, to take back what the devil stole from us! Too often we see the events of our redemption in a disconnected sort of way. But it is all really one thing and the best theology connects the dots. It is not wrong for us to focus on one thing or another, but we must not forget that it is all one thing in the end.
Without this reminder, we can develop a kind of myopia that overemphasizes one aspect of redemption at the expense of others. In the 1970s and 1980s it was "all resurrection all the time," but no passion or death.
Christmas, too, has its hazards. We get rather sentimental about the "baby Jesus" but miss other important aspects of his incarnation. The passion and death are present in His birth in homeless poverty, the swaddling clothes, the flight into Egypt, and so forth. The Eucharist is evident in His birth at Bethlehem (House of Bread) and His being laid in a manger (a feed box for animals). His glory as God and His ultimate triumph are manifested in the star overhead and the angels' declaration of glory! You see, it is all tied together, and the best theology connects the dots.
So with that in mind I present this wonderful Advent hymn, so seldom sung in our Catholic parishes. It can be sung to any Long Meter (LM) tune but is usually sung to its own melody ("Puer Natus"). I provide below only the English translation, but both the Latin and the English are available in this document: Veni Redemptor Gentium. I think the poetic translation reprinted below is a minor masterpiece of English literature and hope you'll agree. Enjoy this sweeping theological vision of the mystery of Advent caught up into the grand and fuller vision of redemption.
Among the theological truths treated in this brief hymn are these: His title as Redeemer, His birth to a virgin, His inclusion of the Gentiles, His sinlessness, His two natures in one person, His incarnation at conception, His passion, His death, His descent into Hell, His ascension, His seat at the Fathers right hand, His divinity and equality with the Father, His healing and sanctification of our humanity so wounded by sin, His granting us freedom and eternal life, His renewing of our minds through the light of faith, and His opening of Heaven to us.
Not bad for seven verses! St. Ambrose, pray for us!
Come, thou Redeemer of the earth,
Come manifest thy virgin birth:
All lands admire, all times applaud:
Such is the birth that fits our God.
Forth from his chamber goeth he,
That royal home of purity,
A giant in twofold substance one,
Rejoicing now his course to run.
The Virgin's womb that glory gained,
Its virgin honor is still unstained.
The banners there of virtue glow;
God in his temple dwells below.
From God the Father he proceeds,
To God the Father back he speeds;
Runs out his course to death and hell,
Returns on God's high throne to dwell.
O Equal to thy Father, thou!
Gird on thy fleshly mantle now;
The weakness of our mortal state
With deathless might invigorate.
Thy cradle here shall glitter bright,
And darkness breathe a newer light,
Where endless faith shall shine serene,
And twilight never intervene.
All laud, eternal Son, to thee
Whose advent sets thy people free,
Whom with the Father we adore,
And Holy Ghost, for evermore.
This video gives you an idea of what the tune for Veni Redemptor Gentium sounds like. The words in this version are slightly different from what is shown above, but the hymn tune is perfect. Just try not to dance as it is sung! You can find the melody for this hymn tune, "Puer Natus," in the index of most hymnals. The words to the hymn, however, can be sung to any Long Meter (LM) hymn tune.
The Old Rugged Cross was composed in my home town back in Michigan.
Thanks for posting this beautiful hymn and the great singing of the chorale.
Really, you all sing a hym by the great Catholic Doctor of the Church Saint Ambrose with language like virgin Mary in it, etc. Surprising.
Not surprising to me. We Lutherans claim St. Ambrose and the Church Fathers as our heritage also. Luther and the Lutheran reformers only cleaned up what needed to be cleaned up--errors that had crept in over the centuries which obscured or contradicted the gospel--and kept as much as could be kept. BTW, I belong to a group of Lutheran hymn writers, the Society of St. Ambrose, named in honor of the Father of Western Hymnody
Lutherans should have a fondness for +Ambrose because he was the Baptizer of +Augustine.
Augstine’s Enchridion is the foundation of much of Luther’s theology.
Were you ever in Cletus Yokel's hometown to write "The Old Rugged Cross?"
Hmmm a Bishop from Milan, loyal to the Bishop of Rome, who believed in the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Mother, 7 sacraments, etc, etc. Ok. Still interesting.
Well, Ambrose got a **lot** of things right, but maybe not everything. :-)
So do we Anglicans.
Well played. BTW, Lutherans are the more charitable Protestants on this site, not as much polemical stuff as some of the other FR Protestant cohorts on this site. And I would say you all kept most of the orthodox Apostolic Catholic faith, say IMO, about 90 to 95% of it! :)
Long Meter
Quatrains — four lines.
(a b a b rhyme scheme,not sure about this.)
Iambic - da DAH
quatrameter — da DAH da DAH da DAH da DAH —
I THINK that I shall NE-ver See ...
on JOR-dan’s BANK the BAP-tist’s CRY...
Example:
O SAluTARis HOStiA
Been meaning to respond on this. This is one of the 3 latin hymns I mentioned which appear in that missalette. The cumbersome American translation from latin to this traditional latin hymn usually sung during the exposition of the Host while in the monstrance and sometimes during communion loses that LM quality of cadence.
In fact what they should do is leave it alone and if they feel they need to offer a translation. Offer it as a not as a lyric but as an foot note explanation of meaning.
.
I'll defend the English translators this far: They didn't slather their translation with treacle. They seem to have made an effort to stick with the spare elegance of the Latin text.
Contrast, on the one hand, Aquinas through Caswell with, on the other the Memorare in Latin and the usual English version. There are unnecessary and,IMHO, sentimental interpolations which are really impositions on the original.
Virgo virginis, Mater becomes “Virgin of virgins, [my] mother.” Why? This saddles the mystic proclamation of Mary's maternity with bathetic subjective appropriation of her majesty.
“Noli, Mater Verbi, verba mea despicere” is elegant. It is almost a witty pleading, bold and abject at once. To fluff it up with “Mother of the Word [Incarnate]” is like coating a diamond with a marshmallow! Why the needless specification? Are they afraid we might think she is the mother of some other word?
Sure, I am biased toward the Oxford Movement divines, not least because they introduced aesthetic, theological, and even spiritual hunger into the gilded cardboard of Episcopal worship. But I think, while Aquinas's Latin will always outshine any translation, Caswell and Neale did a good job and managed an act of almost subversion in introducing Aquinas, forsooth, into stolid Anglicanism.
So, yeah, I basically agree with you. I am adding that these translations may end up doing more good than we would expect. Even sentimental, frilly, and florid devotion to the Panagia is better than no devotion.
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