PSALM OFFERING 4: Remembered By God
Initially, I composed this hymn for my choirs at St Hubert in 1992. I was in my second year of diacoInal formation and dedicated the hymn to Deacon Bob Conlin, the director of the Permanent Diaconate at that time. What is presented here is the hymn reimagined for piano.
Remembered by God is primarily based on Baruch 5:1-9, the first reading of the Second Sunday of Advent, Year C, and a wee bit of Isaiah 62: 1-2.
“Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God. Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God; put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting; for God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven. For God will give you evermore the name, “Righteous Peace, Godly Glory.” Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height; look toward the east, and see your children gathered from west and east at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them. For they went out from you on foot, led away by their enemies; but God will bring them back to you, carried in glory, as on a royal throne. For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low and the valleys filled up, to make level ground, so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God. The woods and every fragrant tree have shaded Israel at God’s command. For God will lead Israel with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness that come from him. (Baruch 5:1-9, NRSV)
This is my adaptation of the text for the hymn I wrote.
Refrain
Let us prepare a way for the Lord
let us put on the splendor of God forever,
let us gather with all people and rejoice
or we are remembered by God.
May we give birth
to God’s tidings of joy to the lowly,
and heal all broken hearts,
and announce this time
of favor from our God. (refrain)
Upon the heights let us stand
and look East and look West,
and see all of God’s children,
whom God brings into our midst
with mercy and justice. (refrain)
May we be clothed
with God’s robe of salvation.
Wrap around us God’s mantle of justice.
And go forth led in joy
by God’s light that grows within us. (refrain)
We all possess the need to be remembered by someone in our lives. On the record album, Goodbye and Hello, there is a haunting song composed and recorded by Tim Buckley entitled, “Once There Was”. In the song, a man recalls his relationship with a woman who has left him for another man. Each verse ends with the man wondering if she will ever remember him. I first heard this song in the HBO documentary, “Letters From Home”. This documentary chronicled the history of the Vietnam War as told in the letters of the soldiers who fought the war. A letter from an American soldier who was killed during the Tet Offensive in 1968 was read in which he asked his girl from home whether she would remember him should he die in battle. This song was played immediately following the reading of that letter.
If it is so important that we be remembered by others during our lifetime, is it not far more important to be remembered by the God who loved us into creation? Baruch reminds us that while others may forget us, God never forgets us nor ever ceases to love us. As I grieve at the mistreatment of migrant children and their families on our border, I am comforted by the thought that these families are not forgotten by God. I also realized that God will not forget the harm done to these families by those who are responsible for the harm.
