“Welcome to This Feast of Witness”
This month we continue our Hymn of the Month series in which one or more hymns drawn from collections published by The Leupold Foundation 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 October 2024 is “Welcome to This Feast of Witness” by Daniel B. Merrick (1926-2004). As a Eucharistic text, the hymn is appropriate not only for World Communion Sunday, the first Sunday in October for congregations who observe that commemoration, but for every Sunday of the month for congregations who celebrate the Eucharist weekly. The first stanza begins with a word of welcome to “this feast of witness,” with an emphasis on Christ’s “body broken for the world,” while the second focuses on “God’s grace, a gift, not earned.” In the third stanza, Merrick affirms that “Bread and wine are brough together at the heart of Christian life,” and in the fourth, he concludes the hymn by proclaiming, “O how precious is this banquet set for us, by Christ prepared.” The two suggested familiar tunes are both well-matched to the mood of the text.
Daniel B. Merrick was born in Bloomington, Illinois, and received his seminary education at Phillips Theological Seminary in Enid, Oklahoma. As an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), he served as pastor for congregations in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the Panama Canal Zone; and Peoria, Illinois. As a hymn writer and hymnologist, Merrick also served as editor for his denomination’s 1995 Chalice Hymnal and for its subsequent Chalice Hymnal: Worship Leader’s Companion. A collection of over sixty of his hymn texts, entitled, New Honors for His Name, was published by The Leupold Foundation in 2002.
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