Scroll lower to view reasons for revision + downloadable sheet music.
Unaltered lines are in light gray; altered lines are in black.
Holy, holy, holy!
Lord God Almighty
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee
Holy, holy, holy!
Justice wed to mercy,
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!
Holy, holy, holy!
All the saints adore thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea.
Cherubim and seraphim,
falling down before thee,
Who was and is and evermore shall be.
Holy, holy, holy!
Sacred darkness cloaks thee,
Granting us mere glimpses of thine untold Mystery.
Still, thine image shows thee
in each human body:
Thou art our breath, our love and artistry.
Holy, holy, holy,
Although almighty,
Thou stripped off omnipotence to share our frailty.
Only Thou are holy,
yet thou chose the lowly —
With the despised, there shall thy Spirit be.
Holy, holy, holy!
God of the lowly!
All thy works shall praise thy name
In earth and sky and sea
Holy, holy, holy!
Justice wed to mercy,
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!
Reasons for Revision
This hymn by Anglican archbishop Reginald Heber (1783–1826) is a lovely piece of pure adoration of the Triune God. My personal appreciation of it centers on how it spans centuries — published the year Heber died, it’ll be two hundred years old next year! — and traditions:
I grew up singing it in Catholic Mass; I sing it now in a Presbyterian church; and I enjoy queer musician Sufjan Stevens’s cover of it. Heck, even the non-Trinitarian Latter Day Saints/Mormons sing it (altering “God in three persons, blessed Trinity” to “God in His glory, blessed Deity”). Thus when we sing this song we do so together not only with “cherubim and seraphim,” but with a vast cloud of human witnesses.
To better encapsulate the hymn’s expansive nature, and to infuse it with key concepts from liberationist theologies, I have revised parts of it with several goals:
- To move from an emphasis on God’s “might” to God’s solidarity and abiding Presence.
- To remove an instance of patriarchal language (“sinful man”).
- To move from an equation of darkness and sightlessness with sinfulness (“Though the darkness hide thee / though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see”) into an appreciation for the thick darkness — Hebrew עֲרָפֶל arafel — from which God guided the liberated Hebrews.
- ^ That stanza on God’s hiddenness is the part of the hymn I changed most — I ended up turning it into two stanzas! Refocusing that hiddenness around Mystery rather than sin, and taking the opportunity that afforded me to explore how the Trinity chooses to relate to humanity in the Imago Dei, in the Incarnation, and through the Holy Spirit.
I am thankful to Dr. Matt Webb for his input on my revisions. If you notice anything more to change up in this hymn, let me know!
Binary-Breaking Worship 