Songs We Sing (6/9/13)

The year was 433 AD and it was Easter’s eve in northern Ireland. This particular evening before Easter also marked the beginning of the festival of Bealtine, a druidic festival, as well as the beginning of the spring equinox. Because of the significance of the night, the pagan King Leoghaire (pronounced “Leary”) decreed that no fires be lit until the fire on nearby Tara Hill was set. It would be this fire on this hill that would usher in the spring equinox.

But King Leoghaire’s fire on Tara Hill was not the first fire lit that evening. In a bold and defiant move toward the pagan king, Saint Patrick lit candles atop the Hill of Slane to celebrate the resurrection of his precious Christ.

King Leoghaire, so impressed by Patrick’s courage, refused to execute him and rather allowed him to continue his prolific missionary work throughout Ireland. At least that is the story as I heard it.

It is said to be this stand of Patrick’s on the Hill of Slane that inspired some 100 years later the Irish poet Dallan Forgaill, to write one of the songs we will be singing this Lord’s Day: Be Thou My Vision. 

Dallan Forgaill was supposedly killed by pirates in 598 AD and was known as a studious and scholarly man. So much so it is believed that because so much of his time was spent reading, writing, and studying that he eventually went blind.

With that spectacular story in mind, of those who are a part of the same holy, catholic church that we today are still a part of, let us love and sing and wonder at our great God who has ransomed His people from every tribe and language and people and nation.

Here are our songs for this week:

1. Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder
2. Be Thou My Vision
3. Thank God
4. Put In Me