Faith of Our Fathers -- Frederick W. Faber

He was a fence-rider, in a sense. Perhaps someone might have said this about Frederick W. Faber, even after he left the Anglican Church, England’s state church, for Roman Catholicism in the 1840s. Not only his remembrance of church history, but an active effort to remind other believers of our predecessors, as in “Faith of Our Fathers”, reflected Faber’s endeavor to reach back to his Calvinist roots and simultaneously serve his new Catholic brethren. Where would Christendom be without the sacrifices of people from centuries long ago? (Especially, Faber was thinking of those who’d been punished under Henry VIII, shown here.) Even in what historians now characterize as ‘the dark ages’, somehow faith survived. Deep in his inner being, Faber wanted to honor that past through ‘high’ worship, to evoke a congregational spirit he must have felt was missing in his newly adopted church. He didn’t wallow in frustration, but took action, perhaps with the same courage he thought his ancestors had possessed.

Frederick Faber looked backward as a 35-year old to grasp some things from not only his own past, but from hundreds of years before. At first he was an Anglican minister, like his father before him, following his graduation from Oxford University as a 29-year old. But, he’d become acquainted with a movement, probably while at Oxford among his brethren, that emphasized the practices and their meaning in congregational worship. These spoke to his heart with such force that he drew closer to a body of believers whose worship underscored this approach. Catholic history, particularly in1500s England, reminded Faber of how much he owed much to God and these forefathers. But, while Catholic worship appealed to his sense of awe in a liturgical way, he missed the singing and the sense of fellowship this engendered in his Anglican roots. So, why not return to the Anglican Church? One can imagine there must have been some tension in his life, especially with his own father, after his open embrace of Catholicism, an organization he himself had once criticized. Yet, he reasoned that devotion to his own upbringing was outweighed by what had happened many generations earlier. And, he yearned to fill the singing gap he observed with new songs, even if he felt inadequate to the task. He crafted some 150 new hymns by the time of his premature death at age 49, so one could say his will had conquered the insufficiency that competed with his insides. “Faith of Our Fathers” was among the first batch of hymns he produced, a reflection of his preoccupation with those who’d been executed under King Henry VIII’s reign. He called out to their and his God, thanking his ancestors for the ‘fires’, ‘swords’, ‘dungeons’, and ‘chains’ they had endured. One can imagine Faber saying to himself, ‘God must have meant so much to them!’    

There’s a group today that Frederick would no doubt appreciate.  The Voice of the Martyrs (https://vom.com.au/history/) reminds Christians today that there are still believers who are punished because they choose God, despite the consequences. We Christian believers can have honest disagreements with other folks, because of the way they express their beliefs, and even when they worship a God or gods we don’t recognize. But, we no longer accept that force is a method we use to convince belief in the Divine. And, we acknowledge that we may in fact suffer at the hands of others who use the methods we’ve discarded. Instead, we lift others of like faith to Him, and trust that the examples of faith survive and overcome, for eternity’s sake. Sounds like something that Frederick Faber might have said, doesn’t it?

See more information on the song story in these sources: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006; Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990; and 101 Hymn Stories, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1985.

See also a brief biography of the author here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/f/a/b/faber_fw.htm

Also see this link, showing all four original verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/f/a/i/faithoof.htm

Father of Mercies – Frederick Faber and Alice Flowerdew

“Father of Mercies” -- if ever a hymn could be called a hybrid, this one certainly would. Think of it kind of like a cross-breed animal…like a Zebra and a Donkey – a Zeedonk (see the picture). Its history is a cut and paste affair, with portions of the hymn being written by two different poets, from two different churches, with some words from the original poems changed to the words we know today. And, the poets were even born in different centuries, so it might be hard to fathom what forces worked to bring this song’s verses together. Perhaps it helped that both poets were English and that their poems were both 19th Century compositions, despite the poets’ birthdates. More importantly, this song-poem’s message reminds the worshipper that God is universal, that His goodness calls out to all people, across time and other dividing lines. Alice Flowerdew spent some time abroad in Jamaica, as the wife of a British government official, until she returned to England in the early 19th Century following the death of her husband. She was 44 years old in 1803 when she wrote the words of the six-stanza poem “Fountain of Mercies, God of Love”, the first word of which was later changed to ‘Father’ for the song; the resulting text for verses two and three of the song “Father of Mercies” came from the first and fifth stanzas of her original poem. She was the caretaker of a ladies boarding school and a member of a Baptist church when she composed the words. Could the other ladies at the school or people at the church be for whom she was writing when she penned the words ‘all creatures’, ‘our hearts’, and ‘our Father’s hand’ in the two verses attributed to her? It would be no surprise, if following the death of her husband, that a group of women and-or fellow believers had become especially important to her. On the other hand, Frederick William Faber’s verse indicates he felt God’s presence very personally, since he chose the phrases ‘my love’ and my way’ to express his devotion to Him. Faber’s experiences by 1849, when he was 35 years old, suggest his personal devotion to God. Though he began his adult vocation in the Anglican clergy in Elton, he had switched to Catholicism by 1845, along the way enduring dissenters in the church where he ministered and intensely contemplating the roots of his faith. Faber never married, and he and some of his friends formed a pseudo-monastery. Though he moved to Birmingham, England following his conversion to the Catholic Church, he moved yet again to London soon thereafter. He was kinda like a ‘rolling stone’, but throughout he maintained his love of music, upon which he leaned to develop meaningful Catholic hymns in the publication “Jesus and Mary” in 1849. This collection contained “Mother of Mercies”, which was eventually changed to ‘Father..’, an echo of what had happened to Flowerdew’s “Fountain of Mercies…”. One wonders what Flowerdew and Faber might have said had they known of their poems’ union years later. It shouldn’t surprise us, though, that God’s purposes can create something valuable out of seemingly disparate elements. The church itself is a hybrid-- not everyone’s an ear, or an eye, after all. I think the next time I sing this song, I’ll look around and wonder what other hybrids God just might be crafting for His use. Information on the hymn was available at: http://homeschoolblogger.com/hymnstudies/534423/ Information on the composers was obtained through the websites: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/index.htm#lk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_William_Faber http://www.ely.anglican.org/about/good_and_great/faber.html