Hymn: O Love, How Deep, How Broad, How High

...have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge… Eph. 3:17-19

These verses form the basis of the first stanza of this hymn. The remaining stanzas describe the magnitude of Christ’s love in His life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and in sending of the Holy Spirit.  Although it is primarily about Christ, it acknowledges the full, Triune nature of God as it closes with a paraphrase of the Gloria Patri (“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was…”).  The hymn text, in its original Latin, is often ascribed to Thomas à Kempis, author of the devotional book The Imitation of Christ.

The exuberant tune, DEO GRACIAS, was composed shortly around 1415 when the English defeated the French at Agincourt in Normandy.  The music was originally set to another text thanking God for England’s victory.  The film score to Lawrence Olivier’s Henry V, which retells the famous battle, quotes this tune to stunning effect.

As you sing this rousing hymn, enjoy the jaunty, dance-like rhythms of the music.  The music is a fitting match for the lofty, celebratory, Christ-centered text.