Following the season of Easter is the Day of Pentecost, celebrating the narrative recorded in Acts 2 of the Holy Spirit descending onto followers of Christ and allowing them to speak in multiple languages. What God is able to do here is a powerful account of how the Holy Spirit works through people, breaking through human barriers, to share the Good News of salvation to all. Read the history of three hymns for Pentecost below, excerpted from Lutheran Service Book: Companion to the Hymns, that includes some surprising facts and details that will enrich your understanding of each hymn text.
Hail Thee, Festival Day (LSB 489)
Bishop Felix of Nantes served a remote stretch of northwest Gaul where, in the middle of the sixth century, he had converted and baptized the fierce Saxons. Venantius Fortunatus (ca. 540–early 7th cent.) penned several poems for Felix, including the 110-line poem from which “Hail thee, festival day” is taken. He wrote it for an Easter Vigil sometime between 567 (when Felix became bishop) and 576 (when the collection containing the poem was published). The poem, which is in elegiac couplets (a hexameter line followed by a pentameter one), is a celebration of the reawakening of nature in spring, a tribute to Christ’s victory over death, and a commendation to Felix for exemplary service.
About the Text
The refrain “Salve festa dies” (Greetings, O festal day!) is line 39 of Fortunatus’s poem. . . . The poem became popular and was adapted for singing at various festivals, notably Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost—though settings for Corpus Christi and the dedication of a church are also known. In order to match the poem better with each festival, new stanzas were written during the Middle Ages. Many of these hymns used the line beginning “Salve festa dies” but little else from Fortunatus’s original.
The hymn in LSB is a mixture of stanzas from the original and ones added in service books from the cathedrals of Salisbury and York in England. These Sarum and York Processionals, as the books are called, exist in manuscript beginning with the fourteenth century and in print from the early sixteenth century. The LSB translation is likewise a mixture of three that appeared in The English Hymnal of 1906: one by Maurice Frederick Bell of an Easter hymn from the Sarum Processional, one by Percy Dearmer of an Ascension hymn from the Sarum Processional, and one by Gabriel Gillett of a Pentecost hymn from the York Processional.
Holy Spirit, Ever Dwelling (LSB 650)
In one of its collects, the Church prays:
Almighty and ever-living God, You make us both to will and to do those things that are good and acceptable in Your sight. Let Your fatherly hand ever guide us and Your Holy Spirit ever be with us [emphasis added] to direct us in the knowledge and obedience of Your Word that we may obtain everlasting life. (LSB Altar Book, p. 448)
That prayer summarizes well the theme of this hymn. From the first stanza to the last, the author describes for us who the Holy Spirit is (“ever dwelling,” “ever living,” “ever working”) and what He does (“ever raising,” “ever forming,” “ever binding”) so that we may obtain everlasting life. The text is strikingly similar to the thoughts expressed by Martin Luther in his familiar explanation of the Holy Spirit’s work:
In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian Church He daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers. On the Last Day He will raise me and all the dead, and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ. (Apostles’ Creed, Third Article)
About the Text
In the first stanza, the word “brooding” brings to mind the biblical image of the Holy Spirit as a dove; in Genesis 1:2, He is pictured as “hovering [that is, brooding] over the face of the waters.” The Spirit is ever present, protecting and taking under His wing those who belong to Him. They are those to whom He imparts life in the waters of Holy Baptism, those who from the font are raised to walk in the newness of life and who eventually are raised from the earth “to thrones on high.” It is as we confess in the Nicene Creed: the Holy Spirit is “the Lord and giver of life.”
The second stanza refers to the Spirit’s ongoing work of sanctification: ever striving, in us and through us, to form in us the mind of Christ. . . . In the last stanza, the author provides more reasons why we will always worship and praise, magnify and extol the Holy Spirit. . . . The Spirit does one last thing: He binds the Church together into an eternal communion, the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant, against which the gates of hell shall never prevail.
To God the Holy Spirit Let Us Pray (LSB 768)
Berthold of Regensburg (ca. 1210–72), a Franciscan preacher, commented on the first stanza of this hymn in a sermon derived from Psalm 124:7:
“Nu bitten wir” is in truth a useful and dear hymn, and the more you sing it, the better. With wholehearted devotion, you ought to sing it and cry unto God. It was a happy find, and a wise man has written it.
About the Text
“Nu bitten wir” (now spelled “Nun bitten wir”) is a Leise, a spiritual song in German from the late Middle Ages whose text ends with the word Kyrieleis, a contracted form of Kyrie eleison (“Lord, have mercy”). This and other Leisen were known to Martin Luther, and they form an important source for his hymns. In his Latin Mass (Order for Mass and Communion, 1523), Luther points to the one-stanza Leise “Nun bitten wir” as an exemplary hymn to use in the service and as a model of hymnody to inspire new poets. Luther added three stanzas to the old Leise to expand the prayer set forth in it. The additional stanzas appeared in 1524, and in the German Mass of 1526, Luther suggested that the hymn be sung before the Holy Gospel. The hymn was used widely and regularly in the Lutheran service, and it is among the ten most frequently cited hymns in Lutheran church orders between 1523 and 1750.
Luther’s stanzas (2–4) are based on the themes and poetic structure of the received first stanza. Each stanza begins with the intimate pronoun “du,” followed by a name for the Spirit that highlights one of His properties (sweetest Love, transcendent Comfort, precious Light) and, in line 2, a prayer for gifts appropriate to those properties (unity among Christians, strength in time of trial, perseverance until death). The third line of each stanza begins with the word “that” (German, “dass”), followed by a clear and precise reason for the petition in line 2. The hymn, especially in its current version, which places the original second stanza last, reflects the pilgrimage of faith; and the concluding “Lord, have mercy!” brings all of the richness of that phrase to bear on the previous petitions. It is a confession of the Lordship of the Spirit and of His merciful nature.
Blog post adapted from Lutheran Service Book: Companion to the Hymns, vol. 1 © 2019 Concordia Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Find music for Pentecost and more seasonal services in the Lutheran Service Book: Pew Edition hymnal.
