Daily Devotion - There's a wideness in God's mercy

Jesus and Peter on the Water by Gustave Brion, 1863

A Daily Devotion written for St Stephen's Rochester Row. You can read all the Daily Devotions on the church website at this link.

It was wonderful to be back at St Stephen’s Rochester Row to celebrate Jeremy Cavanagh’s ordination to the Diaconate and a great treat to sing a hymn again for the first time in six months - and quite appropriate to sing this particular hymn in the great outdoors!

The text of “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy” is taken from a longer poem titled “Come to Jesus” written by Frederick William Faber (1814-1863) who spent an extended period overseas after his ordination (like Jeremy!) - his letters and diaries describe in lyrical detail the beauty of the landscapes he saw and the diverse customs of the people he met. After his conversion to Roman Catholicism, he led a more interior, cloistered life, founding a small religious community in Birmingham and then in London.

Much of Faber’s writing, like the hymn we sang, encourages us to meditate on the reality that while “God’s love is broader than the measures of the mind” it is also highly particular - amongst the myriad of other creatures on earth God loves each of us individually.

In “All men have a special vocation,” (1859) Faber explains that this is a thought so old, it is always new; so broad we can never learn it thoroughly - although we are called to spend a lifetime trying. He writes;

“God’s love of us is so bewilderingly great, and so bewilderingly special, that we must love him with a glorious love, to be worthy of the name of love at all.”

“The truth is, - and it follows from the speciality of God’s love of us, - every man has a distinct vocation, a vocation of his own, a vocation which might be like other men’s vocations, but is never precisely the same.” We are all “necessary to God.”

As we celebrate the start of the next phase of Jeremy’s vocation, Faber reminds us, whether we are conscious of it or not that we all, like the individual notes of a hymn, have an important and particular place in God’s song of love; a song drawing us ever closer to Him.

“In the far back of an unbeginning eternity we shall see a clear and special purpose for which God has created us, an individual speciality, which he has never quite repeated in any of his other creatures, a special attraction which called out his love to us, or rather, which his love invented... This speciality decided our vocation upon earth. It fixed our place. It determined our time. It fashioned our work….All our inspirations, like according notes in music, were a unity, and each sounded out of that eternal purpose and seemed to call us on to its fulfilment. Each present moment was a partial development of the one grand special end; and now our glory in heaven answers to the old eternal speciality of God’s love for us.”

Corona restrictions meant we couldn't sing indoors - so we came outside!

Links

The full text of Faber’s Poem “Come to Jesus” can be found on page 117-119 at this link. Faber’s essay “All men have a special vocation” is published as part of his ‘Spiritual Conferences’ which can be read in full at this link.

Image : Jesus and Peter on the Water by Gustave Brion, 1863