“The Feasting in the Upper Room”
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 contemporarysociety. 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 Feasting in the Upper Room” by John Core (1951-2017) set to tune THURSDAY by Iteke Prins (b. 1937) is a Communion hymn specific enough to be appropriate for Maundy Thursday liturgies, yet general enough to be sung at any Eucharistic liturgy. Hence, introduced on Maundy Thursday, the hymn could also be used at other services of Holy Communion throughout the church year. Poetically, the hymn utilizes not only an unusual meter (88 88 57), but also a challenging rhyme scheme (abbacc) that only a seasoned poet would attempt to maintain for four stanzas. Structurally, the hymn opens with a colorful description of the “feasting in the upper room” when Jesus gathered with his disciples for a final Passover meal, followed by a second stanza about the “bread prepared” and a third about the “brimming chalice of red wine.” The final fourth stanza imitates the first by using the same line-by-line imagery in describing the “feasting in this sacred room” twenty centuries later when contemporary disciples gather for “Jesus’ endless feast to be.”
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 four collections of texts with Leupold Editions. Prins was born in Holland, and immigrated to the United States in 1949. After achieving her career goal as a registered nurse, Prins later served as organist and music director for Blooming Grove Reformed Church in Rensselaer, New York, from 1969 until 2005. Prins has published seven volumes of hymn tunes with Leupold Editions.
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