God the Father Sends His Spirit

Sung in Worship: September 29, 2024 – Holy Baptism

The words of this hymn are by the Reverend Canon Dr Gordon Giles (b. 1966), Canon Chancellor of Rochester Cathedral.  Giles was educated at Lancaster University, where he studied music and aesthetics, and at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he studied philosophy.  He then studied theology at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1995.  Having served a curacy in Cambridge, he became, in 1998, Succentor of St Paul’s Cathedral and a minor canon.  After several other positions both in parish work and in administration, in 2020 he was appointed to his current post in Rochester.  Giles holds a Ph.D. (2012) in hymnology and liturgy from Middlesex University.  He is an Editor of A&M and a Director of the English Hymnal Company.   In addition to a number of hymns, Giles has written several Lent and Advent books for the Bible Reading Fellowship (BRF), as well as several books on hymns.

The tune , “Love Divine,” by John Stainer, was first published with Charles Wesley’s words in A&M in 1889.   Born in South London, Stainer became a chorister at St Paul’s when he was 10 years old.  At 16 he was handpicked by Frederick Ouseley, Heather Professor of Music at Oxford, to be organist at the newly-established Tenbury College, and shortly after that Ouseley also arranged for Stainer’s admission to the B. Mus. degree at Oxford.  In 1860 Stainer was appointed  Informator Choristarum and organist at Magdalen College, then in 1861 he became  university organist.  He took his first degree in 1864 and his M.A in 1866.  In 1872 he succeeded Goss as organist at St Paul’s, where he stayed until problems with his eyesight forced him to retire in 1888, the year in which he was knighted by Queen Victoria.  But, still a young man, Stainer continued to compose and to write on music theory and history.  His most prolific period of hymn writing was in the 1890s, and a collection of 158 of his hymns appeared in 1900 from Novello.  He succeeded Ouseley as Heather Professor in 1889.  Stainer’s Christmas Carols New and Old (1871), produced in collaboration with the Reverend Henry Bramley, brought about a Victorian revival of Christmas carols, and was the standard collection until The Oxford Carol Book of 1928.  His Passiontide cantata, The Crucifixion, first performed in 1887, remains a standard work for many choirs.