AM CURRENTLY INVOLVED with a hymn project, which occasionally entails heated discussions about hymn texts. A challenge we sometimes face is whether certain language is too archaic for modern use. Often there is no “correct answer” to these questions, but it cannot be denied that some words are not perceived in 2016 how they would have been 200 years ago.
Here’s a hymn by MSGR. RONALD KNOX for St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher:
* * PDF • Hymn for St. Thomas More & St. John Fisher
I’m not sure whether that hymn will make it—and deliberations over such matters will continue. But it’s still an interesting hymn, don’t you agree?
By the way, here’s an oil painting by William Frederick Yeames:
It is called “The meeting of Sir Thomas More with his daughter after his death sentence.”
