“God, with Colors Bright and Brilliant”
This month we continue our Hymn of the Month series in which one or more hymns drawn from collections published by Leupold Editions will be posted on the opening page of the website for consideration by pastors and musicians who may wish to introduce the hymn to their congregations the following month. The Hymn of the Month will often be thematically appropriate for a particular season of the church year or it may be related to a more general theme about the church’s mission in contemporary society. Thus, pastors and/or musicians may wish to have the choir introduce the hymn on the first Sunday of the month or season and then invite the congregation to join with the choir in singing the hymn on each of the remaining Sundays. Additional hymns will occasionally be suggested for a particular Sunday in the church year or for annual commemorations, such as the liturgies of Holy Week; such hymns may only be appropriate on the designated day, or they might be used as a Hymn of the Month in anticipation of or in response to the particular day observed on the church calendar.
The Hymn of the Month for March 2024 might more aptly be considered a Hymn of the Season for Lent, given its suitability for all five Sundays of Lent, the first two Sundays of which are actually in February this year. The month of March might also be seen as a retrospective of the work of work of John Core (1951-2017), for not only is the hymn for Lent by that brilliant contemporary author, but also almost all of the additional suggested hymns for Holy Week.
The 2024 Hymn of the Season for Lent, then, is Core’s text, God, with Colors Bright and Brilliant,set to the tune, LOUVOR, by Joa͂o Wilson Faustini (1931-2023). Particularly appropriate for Year B in the Revised Common Lectionary, this hymn weaves together allusions to the covenant themes of four of the five appointed First Readings for the Sundays in Lent. Congregations would thus do well to introduce the hymn on the First Sunday in Lent (18 Feb. in 2024) and sing it again on each of the four following Sundays.
Core was born at Camp (now Fort) Rucker, Alabama, and earned a B.A. in Speech Communication from West Virginia University in Morgantown, where he served as a Library Associate cataloging music from 1975 until his death in 2017. Core was a member of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada and published Through the Ceasless Web, Through the Rushes, With in the Madding Maze, and Wonders In Your Word with Leupold Editions.
Faustini, a distinguished Brazilian church musician, choral conductor, composer, and hymnal editor, was educated in the United States at Westminster Choir College and at Union Theological Seminary. Four collections of his hymn tunes A Treasury of Faith Series A, The Heavens are Telling, When Breaks the Dawn and Adoro Te have been published by Leupold Editions.
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