God of Mercy and Compassion

While I’ve been away the Lenten music choices from correspondents have included many songs that are new to me. A couple are chants I just can’t sort out but I’ll try to work out some of the others before Lent is over.

Ming’s parish do this song from the old Catholic Worship Book 692.  This has a text by Michael Hodgetts and is set to the French tune AU SANG QU’UN DIEU. It is actually a rewrite of a hymn of the same name by Edmund Vaughan.

The Hodgetts text is here and the Vaughan here. The sheet music is here courtesy of Godsongs.

These clips all have the Vaughan text.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

6 Responses to God of Mercy and Compassion

  1. Isaac says:

    Desperately trying to find out how to get in touch with Michael Hodgetts so I can actually obtain permission to use his text (far superior for use in the liturgy, IMHO). Anyone know where I can get in touch with him (or his estate, if he has passed)?

    • admin says:

      G’Day Isaac

      Following links from Hymnary he is probably the person who wrote this book:

      His Secret hiding places, 1989:t.p. (Michael Hodgetts) jkt. (b. in Birmingham, 1936; educ. Worcester College, Oxford, also Gregorian Univ., Rome; gen. editor, Catholic Record Society)

      With that education he is a priest or a catholic academic and it might be worth contacting the Catholic Record Society. He was also active writing hymns at least to 2016 if he is the author of this hymn:
      https://www.birminghamdiocese.org.uk/jhn-resources

      So you could contact that diocese. A Michael Hodgetts does teach there:

      https://www.maryvale.ac.uk/academic-staff.html

      Having said all that he holds the copyright himself, so its not like you’ll have a corporation after you if you make your best effort to get permission and fail.

      cheers

      Geoff

  2. Paul Hodgetts says:

    Hello Geoff, you were correct on all guesses. If anyone else wants to use any of my father’s work, please email me at hymns@hodgetts.eu – we don’t charge for non commercial use.
    kind regards
    Paul Hodgetts

    • admin says:

      Thanks for getting in touch, Paul and for access to your father’s text.

      Catholic Worship Book 1 is only from 1985 and is still being used in Australia, although overshadowed by Gather Australia and As One Voice, and then “superseded” by CWB II. It is still a great source of material.

      It is nice to know that there is music that does not require Onelicence nor CCLI.

      Happy Easter

      Geoff

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.