O Lord I Am Not Worthy

Trish was able to point me to the sheet music of this song her parish used at Open Hymnal. With CWB II relying so heavily on old material, especially for tunes, Open Hymnal is looking a much more practical alternative for traditional hymnody.

This is a C18 German song for Eucharist. The version in the Open Hymnal is hamstrung by archaic English in the translation and over complex sentence construction that will make singing it interesting. It is much like the current missal translation in that respect. There are however a lot of variations in lyrics after the first verse available. OCP have a version with a less clunky translation. It is set to NON DIGNUS.

This from the Open Hymnal version:

O Lord, I am not worthy that thou should'st come to me.
But speak the words of comfort, my spirit healed shall be.

o Lord, Thou art all holy, the angels thee adore;
How, then, ought I sincerely my wrongs and sins deplore!

But when Thou soon will enter, my heart, my sinful heart,
Then heal me, be my shelter, for Thou my Saviour art.

O Lord, how can I thank Thee for such a gift as this?
A gift which truly filleth my soul with heavenly bliss!

I praise Thee, I extol Thee, I love Thee O my Sire,
Till once in joy and glory, in heav'n I Thee admire.

This is from Godsongs and has the verses used by OCP and which seem in more common use:

 O Lord, I am not worthy that thou should’st come to me;
But speak the word of comfort, my spirit healed shall be.

And humbly I’ll receive thee, the bridegroom of my soul,
No more by sin to grieve thee or fly thy sweet control.

Eternal Holy Spirit, unworthy though I be,
Prepare me to receive him and trust the Word to me.

Increase my faith, dear Jesus, in thy real presence here,
And make me feel most deeply that thou to me art near.

Happy morning, sweet the hour, That on which Thou cam'st to me,
Beauteous, too, that glorious power, Which allures my soul to Thee.

Thou for whom I've long been sighing, Jesus now, at length Thou'rt mine, 
In Thy sweet embraces lying, Press, oh, press my heart to Thine.

Let not death nor life asunder Rend the bond that makes me Thine; 
Ah, how blissful is the wonder That uplifts my heart to Thine,
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to O Lord I Am Not Worthy

  1. Trish says:

    We used the first 4 of the above verses from Godsong, ending also on one use (Communion at a Lay Led service), with the verse “O Sacrament most Holy, O Sacrament Divine, all praise and all thanksgiving, be every moment thine”, which I heard on a version by Marie Bellet and Collin Rae. According to CCLI, all words and music are PD.

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.