Faith Of Our Fathers: A Song History
Frederick William Faber (1814–1863) was raised in the Church of England and ordained there, but he converted to Roman Catholicism and served in John Henry Newman's Oratory of St. Philip Neri.[1] "Faith Of Our Fathers" first appeared in his 1849 collection Jesus and Mary, which he compiled so that English Catholics, and especially the poor, would have hymns of their own to sing.[2] He admired Protestant hymn writers such as William Cowper, John Newton and the Wesleys and wanted Catholics to have hymns of that kind.[1][2] The hymn remembers the Catholics martyred in England from the time of Henry VIII onward, and Faber published it as one of a pair, with a companion hymn for Ireland.[2][1] In its original form, one stanza looked to Mary's prayers to win England back to the Catholic faith.[1]
Johann Ludwig Ernst Morgenstern, Church Interior, pen and brown ink, brush and brown and gray wash, over graphite; framing lines in pen and ink, 1791. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the song.
Protestant editors soon reworked those lines. In 1853 Hedge and Huntington altered them for a Unitarian hymnal, and the altered version passed into several Nonconformist hymnals in Britain and America.[1] As a result, Unitarians and Roman Catholics came to sing the same hymn in different wordings, a case where, as John Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology put it, "extremes meet."[1] Discipleship Ministries also notes an anonymous final stanza, added later, about loving friend and foe and showing God's love through kind words and good living.[2]
In the United States the hymn is usually sung to ST. CATHERINE, a tune by Henri F. Hemy that appeared in Crown of Jesus Music (London, 1864).[2][3] Hymnary.org credits James G. Walton with adapting the tune in 1874, and Discipleship Ministries says Walton added the refrain sung with it.[4][2] Hymnary.org lists the text in nearly a thousand hymnals, among them The United Methodist Hymnal, where it is No. 710.[1][4] Shelley Stevens includes it in Baker's Dozen #11: Hymns For Two (Duets), a book of thirteen mountain dulcimer duets in DAD tuning, published by Fingers Of Steel.[5]
Sources
- Hymnary.org: "Faith of our fathers! living still".
- Discipleship Ministries: "History of Hymns: 'Faith of Our Fathers' honors English martyrs".
- Hymnary.org: "ST. CATHERINE (Hemy)".
- Hymnary.org: "Faith of Our Fathers, The United Methodist Hymnal #710".
- Fingers Of Steel: "Shelley Stevens, Baker's Dozen #11: Hymns For Two (Duets)".
- Image: Johann Ludwig Ernst Morgenstern, Church Interior, pen and brown ink, brush and brown and gray wash, over graphite; framing lines in pen and ink, 1791. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.