Faith and Family / Sean Gallagher

Hymn expresses deep devotion in joys and trials in marriage and family life

From the earliest days of the Church, sacred music has flowed from the hearts of many believers in a desire to take their worship of Almighty God in his awesome transcendence to a higher level of devotion than they were capable of in the spoken word alone.

I began to experience this power of sacred music as a junior high student when I started serving as a cantor at Sunday Masses at St. Joseph Parish in Shelbyville.

I delved deeper in sacred music while a student at Marian University in Indianapolis, the University of Notre Dame in northern Indiana and Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in St. Meinrad.

So, when my wife Cindy and I were planning our nuptial Mass, it was a natural for us to leave in my hands the music for the June 9, 2001, liturgy at St. Bartholomew Church in Columbus.

I knew from the start that “O God Beyond All Praising” would be the opening hymn.

The hymn text was written in 1982 by the Englishman Michael Perry. It is usually sung to the stately hymn tune “Thaxted,” composed during World War I

by English composer Gustav Holst. (To hear a recording of the hymn, visit lnkiy.in/Thaxted.)

While the text of all the verses of the hymn are beautiful, the final verse is especially fitting for a celebration of the sacrament of matrimony:

“Then hear, O gracious Savior,
accept the love we bring,
that we who know your favor
may serve you as our king;
and whether our tomorrows
be filled with good or ill,
we’ll triumph through our sorrows
and rise to bless you still:
to marvel at your beauty
and glory in your ways,
and make a joyful duty
our sacrifice of praise.”

This text, combined with the soaring beauty of Holst’s music, has moved my heart ever since. It can make an ordinary parish Sunday Mass like June 9, 2001, all over again.

But recently Cindy and I were blessed to sing it from the congregation in two special liturgies in a month’s span.

In mid-August, we attended the funeral of a wife and mother from our parish who was a few years younger than us. She left behind a loving husband and six children.

When I heard the strains of “O God Beyond All Praising” at the start of the closing hymn, I started to cry. The faith of the deceased and everyone in that church helped us believe that we could triumph through our sorrows to bless God still.

A few weeks later, Cindy and I sang the hymn again, this time at the wedding Mass of a niece of ours who had been about 3 months old on June 9, 2001. We marveled at God’s beauty and gloried in his ways both before our eyes that day and in our mind’s eye reaching back to our own wedding day.

We have reached the point in our marriage where we can look back on many yesterdays that have been filled with good and ill. And, God willing, we can look forward to many tomorrows in which we’ll carry out our joyful duty, our sacrifice of God’s praise.

Marriage is a powerful sacrament in the Church rightly celebrated in sacred music. It encompasses the joys and trials of family life and opens our hearts to Christ’s closeness to his bride the Church in all of them.†