Bread of the world in mercy broken

with
EUCHARISTIC HYMN
GENEVAN 98/118

I. Origins

For many years, Reginald Heber (1783–1826), vicar of Hodnet, Shropshire, England, had envisioned producing a collection of hymns containing suitable texts for each Sunday and Saints’ day of the church year. Some had appeared in print as early as 1811, but by 1820 he found himself still in want of more hymns to flesh out his concept. On 5 December 1820, he wrote to his friend Henry Milman (1791–1868), vicar of St. Mary’s, Reading, Berkshire, for his help, and he sent a sample of his project:

I subjoin a spe­cimen of what I have done, that you may understand my plan more perfectly, and be aware of the sort of company in which your verses, if you favour me with any, will appear. . . . If, as you once gave me some reason to hope, and as I still flatter myself is not unlikely, you can give us a few days at Hod­net during this winter or spring, I should like to show you the rest of my collection, and should be glad to enjoy the advantage of your suggestions and criticisms.[1]

The material Heber gave to Milman in late 1820 or early 1821, now housed in the British Library (Add MS 25704), included his hymn “Bread of the world in mercy broken” (Fig. 1), headed “Before the Sacrament.” The original text spanned two stanzas of four lines.

After Heber’s death, his hymn was printed in Hymns Written and Adapted to the Weekly Church Service of the Year (1827), which represented the completion of his project, prepared for press by his widow, Amelia. Here the text was printed exactly as he had given it to Milman, minus a couple of exclamation points in the second stanza.

II. Text: Analysis

In the first two lines, Heber set up the context of Communion by immediately referring to Christ as “Bread of the world” and “Wine of the soul” (John 6:22–59, 1 Cor. 11:24–25). In the same passage in which Jesus declared himself to be the bread of life, he told his disciples, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63). The New Testament speaks of being buried with Christ through baptism, then raised to newness of life (Rom. 6:4, Col. 2:12), or perhaps more akin to Heber’s words, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11).

Where the first stanza is a manner of address and recognition of the addressee’s person and work, the second is the petition. Heber tied the last four lines neatly into the first, referring to the petitioner as the one who is broken in sorrow, the one whose tears are shed; then in keeping with the rhyme scheme, he asked for the elements to be a token of sustaining grace (Ps. 55:22, 73:26, Is. 41:10, 2 Cor. 12:9). Grammatically (or syntactically), the entire hymn forms a single thought, where the subject is “Bread” (also named “Wine”), and the verbs are “look” and “be.”

In the fifth line, Carl Daw felt the first line of the second stanza “echoes many assurances that God is near to the brokenhearted (Psalms 34:18; 51:17; 147:3),” and he believed the next line could be “a condensed allusion to Luke 7:39–50,” meaning the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears.[2]

Methodist scholar Carlton R. Young called Heber’s hymn “a prayer of awe and adoration in simple and understandable words to the consecrated host, i.e., Christ, the sacrificial Lamb of God.”[3] The editors of the Irish Companion to Church Hymnal (2005) remarked, “this 8-line prayer could almost be regarded as an alternative to the traditional liturgical wording of the Agnus Dei: ‘Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world; have mercy on us.’”[4]

III. Tunes

A. EUCHARISTIC HYMN

The most common tune setting for this hymn was made by John Sebastian Bach Hodges (1830–1915), first printed in The Book of Common Praise (1869 | Fig. 3), a collection he edited. At the time, Hodges was rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Newark, New Jersey. In the preface, Hodges stated his purpose for this volume: “It has been compiled at the suggestion and urgent solicitation of others, and its design is simply to help congregational worship—that ‘psalms and hymns and spiritual songs’ may be sung, not by proxy, but by ‘the great congregation.’”

Hodges was the son of revered English organist Edward Hodges. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1845, was educated at Columbia University and General Theological Seminary in New York City, and was ordained as an Episcopal minister. In addition to editing The Book of Common Praise, he also edited Hymn Tunes (1903) and served on the committees for the 1874 and 1892 Episcopal hymnals. After serving in Newark from 1860 to 1870, he spent the rest of his career at St. Paul Church in Baltimore (1870–1906).

Referring to Hodges’ best-known hymn tune in relation to Heber’s text, Carlton Young wrote, “While the hymn has been set to several tunes, . . . only EUCHARISTIC HYMN seems to complement the text’s beautiful simplicity.”[5]

B. RENDEZ À DIEU (GENEVAN 98/118)

Heber’s text is also frequently paired with the French tune RENDEZ À DIEU, which was originally conceived as a tune setting for Psalm 118. It was first published in La forme des prières et chants ecclésiastiques (Strasbourg, 1545), then revised by Loys Bourgeois for Pseaumes octantetrois de David (1551). The earliest known pairing of the French tune with Heber’s text was in William Mercer’s Church Psalter and Hymn Book (1855), where the tune was called NAVARRE.

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
4 December 2020

Footnotes:

1. Amelia Heber, The Life of Reginald Heber, vol. 2 (London: John Murray, 1830), pp. 32–33: Archive.org

2. Carl P. Daw Jr., “Bread of the world in mercy broken,” Glory to God: A Companion (2016), p. 501.

3. Carlton R. Young, “Bread of the world in mercy broken,” Companion to the United Methodist Hymnal (1993), p. 244.

4. Edward Darling & Donald Davison, “Bread of the world in mercy broken,” Companion to Church Hymnal (2005), p. 549.

5. Carlton R. Young, “Bread of the world in mercy broken,” Companion to the United Methodist Hymnal (1993), p. 244.

Related Resources:

John Julian, “Bread of the world in mercy broken,” A Dictionary of Hymnology (London: J. Murray, 1892), p. 169: HathiTrust

Lester Hostetler, “Bread of the world in mercy broken,” Handbook to the Mennonite Hymnary (Newton, KS: General Conference, 1949), p. 181.

Albert C. Ronander & Ethel K. Porter, “Bread of the world in mercy broken,” Guide to the Pilgrim Hymnal (Philadelphia: United Church Press, 1966), pp. 227–228.

Carlton R. Young, “Bread of the world in mercy broken,” Companion to the United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), p. 244.

Carol A. Doran & Robin A. Leaver, “Bread of the world in mercy broken,” The Hymnal 1982 Companion (NY: Church Hymnal Corp., 1994), pp. 576–577.

Edward Darling & Donald Davison, “Bread of the world in mercy broken,” Companion to Church Hymnal (Dublin: Columba Press, 2005), pp. 549–550.

Carl P. Daw Jr., “Bread of the world in mercy broken,” Glory to God: A Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2016), pp. 500–501.

“Bread of the world in mercy broken,” Hymnary.org:
https://hymnary.org/text/bread_of_the_world_in_mercy_broken