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“How Great Thou Art!”: An Athanasian Masterpiece

Yesterday, on this page, Anthony Esolen criticized the vandals who destroy great hymns.  Today, I want to discuss one of the hymns he mentions, “How Great Thou Art.”  The vandals have left this one alone so far, as well they should, because it is a masterpiece.

Catholics do not know this hymn very well.  But in polls among Protestant Christians, it is typically second in popularity, behind “Amazing Grace.”  Billy Graham featured it in his crusades, sung by the great Bev Shea in his sonorous voice.  Its melody is easily adaptable to a Protestant “gospel” context.  But Catholics do not sing it often, perhaps because it is not obviously assignable to any particular season in the Liturgical Year.  In common with spirituals, it fits in with neither the high music of the tradition, nor up-tempo pseudo-pop.

The hymn is a masterpiece because it is so deeply Athanasian.  By that I mean, like St. Athanasius in his treatise on the Incarnation, it praises the Savior of the world as, at the same time, the Word through whom the world came to be.  Thus, it unifies Creation and Redemption, Christian discipleship and love of nature – so crucially important in a society in which a widespread loss of faith corresponds to a loss of the meaning of nature.

Praise the Lord

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