The Battle Hymn of the First Crusade
- People often have a hard time seeing how the ethos of the Crusades can be justified in the light of certain seemingly pacifistic statements attributed to Jesus Christ in the Gospels.
- Why not think about this in a different way by looking at a religiously inspired song of a more recent time?
- Comments welcome. Do you find this strange, exotic, and if so why? Is this part of your personal cultural heritage? If you thought it was before you read all of the stanzas, what do you think now?
- Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
- He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
- He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
- His truth is marching on.
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- (Chorus)
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- His truth is marching on.
- I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
- They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
- I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
- His day is marching on.
-
- (Chorus)
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- His day is marching on.
- I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
- "As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
- Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
- Since God is marching on.
-
- (Chorus)
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Since God is marching on.
- He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
- He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
- Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
- Our God is marching on.
-
- (Chorus)
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Our God is marching on.
- In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
- With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
- As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
- While God is marching on.
-
- (Chorus)
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- While God is marching on.
- He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
- He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,
- So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
- Our God is marching on.
-
- (Chorus)
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Our God is marching on.
- What does it mean that the soul of time will be His slave?
See Judy sing it.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMFfvvR9JXI
Today Pope Francis said the following:
ReplyDeleteAll people are called to do good and not evil, the pope said. Some would object, "'but, Father, he isn't Catholic so he can't do good.' Yes, he can. He must."
The idea that others cannot really be good and do good in the world creates "a wall that leads to war and to something that historically some people have thought: that we can kill in the name of God. And that, simply, is blasphemy. To say that one can kill in God's name is blasphemy."
"The Lord has redeemed us all with the blood of Christ, all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone," he said. Some may ask, "'Father, even the atheists?' Them, too. Everyone.
The soul of Time His slave?
ReplyDelete"Soul of time," (a small "t") is a paradox. Soul is that which is immortal and survives death. Time ends at the end of the universe if we use it as a linear measurement (past-present-future). The soul of linear time becomes a slave to God, because God as creator can end time. Or it would be a contradiction of the meaning of "soul" as immortal? The paradox.
Time as a circular measurement (the cycle of life: past-present-future repeating itself) the "soul of Time" (a capital "T") becomes a slave to God because it transcends mortal measurement....i.e., becomes eternity- "Our God is marching on". Do we march in circles and end up where we started? Or do we spiral upward into another plane of existence at the hand of God who- "With a glory in His bosom... transfigures you and me"?
I am not a philosopher; I am an artist. I think tangentially...I seldom 'hit the mark,' but don't know when I do.