Shcho to za Predivo: What a wonder! Glad the news I bring you

Every so often I find a carol or hymn in another language that appears not to have a translation that would enable it to be sung in English.

Among the abundant patrimony of Christmas carols, in which the culture of Ukraine abounds, especially among the Greek Catholics, is this poignantly tender and beautiful beautiful meditation on the news that the Virgin who has given birth to Jesus as Son of God and Son of Man, is also the first to adore him; how Joseph who is identified as an old man helps to bring in the newborn Christ as Saviour. It also hints how the mother who holds Jesus in the swaddling clothes will one day hold him when he is taken down from the Cross, to be wrapped this time in graveclothes. Yet she does not weep for the loss of her own son alone, but loves the Son who has come as the Lord himself, the Saviour of all.

It is not easy to translate from Ukrainian metre into English verse, as the patterns of the languages, and thus who they are sung, are different. But I hope this offering, with a few rhymes within, will work and enable people to sing with the Christians of Ukraine with tenderness and adoration - and indeed faith and hope. A YouTube link to a lovely rendering of it by a student choir in America, to the setting by Vasyl Barvinskiy, is here:

The translation, such as it is, I dedicate to me dear friend and fellow pilgrim in Australia - Sister Marie Farrell rsm.

Hristos rozhdayetsya! Christ is born: Happy Christmas.

Glad the news I bring you:

"Earth to joy restored;

For to you a Saviour,

Christ is born, our Lord."

See the holy Virgin Mary,

She who bore Him, then adore Him:

“Jesu, my dear Son!”

 

In that cave the old man,

Joseph, see prepare

cloths, to swathe Messiah, 

Jesu, with all care.

Mary mild see in them fold Him,

to her heart more closely hold Him,

Pure Mother of God.

 

Ukrainian traditional carol for the Nativity of Christ. Translation © Mark Woodruff 23.12.2022

An Office Hymn for Easter Eve

Over the Christmas break, I have been going through old books, to discard some and re-read others. In several, I have found folded notes of attempts at hymns that I had forgotten for decades. Here is a hymn to be sung at Vespers of Good Friday and on Holy Saturday.

I must have worked on this when I was at Mirfield (1982-84), where the Community of the Resurrection relied on the seminarian students of the College to sing the offices and liturgies of Holy Week and Easter while many of the Fathers were absent preaching in parishes. Following the custom in the Divine Office of the Liturgy of the Hours (though not in the classic Roman office, or the monastic office that Mirfield drew on to supplement the daily office of the Book of Common Prayer), there was an office hymn for Holy Saturday. It appears to be a version of the hymn used in The Divine Office, provided by Stanbrook Abbey ((c) 1974) - His cross stands empty in a world grown silent. An inclusive language version ((c) 1995) is included in Hymns for Prayer and Praise (Canterbury Press for the Panel of Monastic Musicians, Norwich 1996) at number 155. The Stanbrook hymn's metre is 11.8.11.8. While Stanbrook has its own Mode 3 melody for it, there appear to be few other reasonably known tunes (if there are any at all) that the unfamiliar form of verse may be sung to. I wonder, therefore, if the slip of photocopied typed text of a similar text, As earth is still, the empty Cross, was Mirfield's attempt at a version that could be sung to a Long Metre tune (8.8.8.8) with little practice. The tune given is a mode 1 melody from the Antiphonale Romanum in the English Hymnal at number 237.

I have kept that slip since my student days, when, in 1984, I was responsible as Precentor for music in the College chapel, the execution of the Gregorian chant at offices by the students, and especially at Holy Week and Easter. I chose the hymns, but not the Office Hymns, which were as set in the Community of the Resurrection's Daily Office. So I am pretty certain that As earth is still is not my own adaptation. I don't know where else it may have come from. If any one can shed any light, I should be interested to know.

Here is the 1984 Mirfield text, which I am supposing to be a compression of the Stanbrook Abbey hymn:

As earth is still, the empty Cross
Accounts the gain redeeming loss
Through hours of anguish, fear and dread,
While Christ descends to wake the dead.

He summons Adam and his seed;
His own, long captive held, are freed.
He claims the dead for to life regained,
Brings light where night eternal reigned.

Confessing Christ Who bore the cost
Who losing life so found the lost,
We praise You, Holy Trinity,
Restoring in eternity. Amen.

Evidently, I thought this unsatisfactory and reworked it, adding a further verse. From the many attempts at revised lines, here is the result:

In silence stands the empty Cross
And tells of gain redeeming loss:
Now earth in anguish waits in dread
While Christ descends to wake the dead.

First light, O Christ, to pierce the gloom,
Your dawning rise shall burst the Tomb;
First fruit of those that lay asleep,
A harvest in the morning reap.

You summon Adam and his seed;
Your own, long captive held, are freed.
You claim the dead to life regained,
Bring light where night eternal reigned.

Confessing You that bore the cost,
and losing life restored the lost:
with Father and the Spirit, Three,
One God, we praise eternally. Amen.

I gladly acknowledge the copyright and protection of the original by the Nuns of Stanbrook Abbey. I would like to acknowledge the possible editors at Mirfield. Hoping and assuming that I have their permission to share this old exercise of mine, I suppose I had better say that the adaptations and additions I have made are copyright to me (c) 1984 and 2020.

A final verse to Tydi a Roddaist?

The fine hymn by T. Rowland Hughes, with its haunting tune and dramatic Amen by Arwel Hughes, is one of the most moving and typical Welsh Hymns. The words, however, leaves their subject of song and salvation at the summit of Calvary, which is beautiful; but what of the resurrection and the life of heaven to come? Back in 1992, I attempted a fourth verse to address this question, but forget entirely about it. Never throw a book away: today, I took down Baptist Praise and Worship from its shelf and found the card I had written on, complete with many crossings out and unsuccessful attempts. Twenty-five years on, I have taken another run. Here is the result.


The first three verses, by T. Rowland Hughes (1903-49), tr. Raymond Williams (1928-90). (Baptist Praise & Worship, no. 650)

O Lord, who gave the dawn its glow,
And charm to close the day,
You made all song and fragrance flow,
Gave spring its magic sway:
Deliver us, lest none should praise
For glories that all earth displays

2. O Lord, who caused the streams to sing,
Gave joy to forest trees,
You gave a song to lark on wing,
And chords to gentlest breeze:
Deliver us, lest we should see
A day without a song set free.

3. O Lord, who heard the lonely tread
On that strange path of old,
You saw the Son of Man once shed
His Blood from love untold:
Deliver us, lest one age dawn
Without the Cross, or crown of thorn.

 A proposed fourth verse:

4. O Lord, who sent Your Spirit’s power
To wrest Your Son from death,
And yield Creation’s crowning hour
in Resurrection’s breath:
Deliver us, lest none below
Heaven’s tune of praise to sing should know.

©  Mark Woodruff (1959- ), 25 vi 1992, 2 vii 1992 & 16 vii 2017.

Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen.

Rabboni

I slept; but with my heart awakening
I rose to catch the Garden’s early scent.
Gone was the trodden Plant, Whose fragrance spent
I’d reconcoct with myrrh and spice for sorrowing.
Has Love withdrawn to sicker suffering ?
I sought my Love, but found nowhere He went.
Then, turning round, I see Him and repent
of tears that weren’t for joy, but worrying.
I want to hold Him tight. As soon, he speaks :
‘My love is strong as death; but stronger still
this Life you cannot hold on earth or kill.’
The Lord my strength my song, his glory breaks !
An Ark I dream of in the heavens climbs,
Its anchor to my soul : I’m here all times.

(c) Mark Woodruff, 30 November 1996

Good Friday

Take up your cross and walk with Me this mile;
or (now I ask) walk two, not one alone.
And bring your coat that I may have its loan,
not to console My beaten back that’s vile
and raw, but so I’ll have a friend to smile
and cheer My Passion’s progress. Spread it down
like Sunday last: at least you’ll show this crown
is royal (if I’m your King, then death’s worthwhile).
And then, when I am lifted up, behold,
to you that followed, loyal and devout,
I, reigning from the Tree, will tell it out -
Your scarlet sins have turned not white but gold!
There setting down my cross, coat, Friend, I ran
and said of Him, ‘I do not know the man.’

(c) Mark Woodruff, 30 November 1996

The Winter is Past

"This is My Son, my Loved One. Hear Him speak.”
But when I strain to gather all He says
there is a pause, a silence, nowadays
you only hear when, sheltered by a peak,
the wind is stilled - and stillness is not bleak
on hills, but rich in things a sound betrays.
I rest in hearing what’s not said amaze,
as in broad light I’d see no sight yet seek.
Somewhere a voice says, ‘Cry!’ What shall I cry?
Before, my heart was quiet, simplified.
Now must I chatter from my hurt and pride,
when Christ reviled would only bless and die?
My Loved One spoke: ‘The Kingdom is so near.
Therefore rise up and tell My love: no fear.’


(c) Mark Woodruff, 30 November 1996

The Pearl's Great Price

As Father Heaven, Jupiter, was born
and scaled a  hill to thunder off command;
and Alexander spread his father’s land
to claim as Son of God his crown was worn;
when fortunate Octavian settled power
and called the order ‘Peace’, himself ‘God’s Son’,
there dawned a Light that lightens everyone
and majesty and armour passed their hour.
A father’s field is for a treasure’s grave,
a hill for dwelling and a rock the throne,
where all a loving son will pay is shown,
and force of glory’s arms are Mars unbrave.
I know not where the pearl, this victor, lies,
but buy the field and search for peace, His prize.

(c) Mark Woodruff, 30 November 1996

Judica Me

Lord Jesus Christ, with faith in Your deep love
and mercy, now I eat Your Body racked
and torn by all the extent of trust I lacked
till to Your City’s peace You had me move.
I waited long that true ‘God’s good’ might prove
and, now I drink Your Blood with joy, the fact
of suffering’s cup from memory is blacked
(Patience’s fruit fell from a Tree above).
Swift to the Prodigal the Father ran -
so swift the Saviour runs to kiss the Cross,
that judgment and resentment at a loss
are found and vinegar dumbs doom of man.
Judge only this: my healing, Saviour kind -
my body to be Yours and Yours my mind.

(c) Mark Woodruff, 30 November 1996


 

O living flame of love

O living flame of Love,
how tenderly You wound
my soul’s deep heart.
Make happy ending of
our sweet embrace that, bound,
would pains impart.

O searing, are you sweet;
O wound, are you delight
from such a hand.
Your mortal touch of heat
sets dying life alight,
all debt thus banned.

Now deep, where feeling dwelt
in caverns blind, obscure,
shine lamps of fire !
In warmth let them be felt,
and lovely light be pure
for their Desire.

Where good and glory rest
Your secret breathings wake
from sleep and move,
so gentle in my breast,
by tender pains to make
me fall in love.


St John of the Cross ODC 1542-1591
English translation and adaptation by Mark Woodruff (c) June 1999.
This is a compact version of a fuller translation with another line in each stanza from 1998 that I am revising still.  It goes with a musical setting that I have also been written, but the verses are more poem than hymn.