We will sing two different liturgical pieces from a communion setting newly composed for the ELCA’s most recently published worship resource, All Creation Sings. Our entrance hymn, “Glory to you, God”, a canticle of praise, is based on a text by Susan Palo Cherwien (1953-2001). She was a poet and musician who composed numerous hymn texts appearing in denominational hymnals in the United States, Canada, and Europe. The canticle is set to music by J. Bert Carlson – a musician, composer, and pastor. The “Lamb of God” was written by Anne Krentz Organ, one of the Lutheran church’s most respected contemporary composers and church musicians. She currently serves as the Director of Music Ministries at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Park Ridge, IL.
Our offertory hymn, “This is Christ’s Body”, is another piece by Anne Krentz Organ (b. 1960) from All Creation Sings. The text and its music were “part of a liturgical music commission for the Institute of Liturgical Studies at Valparaiso University in 2019. The theme that year was ‘Table of Thanksgiving: How Eucharist Forms Us.’ ‘This is Christ’s Body’ sings about the dual meaning of ‘Christ’s body’: as bread and as community, both of which are broken and blessed.”
“I Am the Bread of Life” — This hymn and its tune were written by Suzanne Toolan, RSM (b. 1927) in 1966 when she was a high school teacher. Her room was next to the infirmary “where kids came to avoid exams and other pressure of the school world.” One day during her free period she composed it. When the bell came for the next period, she “tore the manuscript in half thinking that the music was rather sentimental and [she] would have a go at it later.” However, as she was leaving her classroom, she was “confronted by a little blond freshman who came out of the infirmary saying, ‘What was that? It was beautiful.’ I went,” she says, “immediately to the wastebasket, took it out, taped it together, and it has had a life of its own ever since.” It was first published in Music for the Requiem Mass (1966). This hymn is a close paraphrase of John 6:35, 44, and 53. With the exception of stanza 5, it is the words of Jesus. Putting the words of God or Jesus in the congregation’s mouth has some historical precedent in a writer like Paul Gerhardt, one of the Lutheran Church’s most important hymn writers.
