St Francis at the Rijks Museum

(Image Credit: Rijks Museum, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata by Lorenzo Monaco)

Hopefully we’re getting to the end of Greater Sydney’s 2nd Lockdown and the feast of St Francis’ Stigmata will see all restrictions chucked out the window. Just in case this doesn’t happen, I’m planning ahead to sing at the 9.15am Livestream Mass for Friday 17th September 2021.

Back when we used to attend Maternal Heart, Lewisham, they prayed a novena on nine consecutive Thursday evenings each year. This involved two hymns - Corda Pia which is already here, and another in English, which I cannot find elsewhere on the Internet, so I type it out as I remember it:

Francis, thou wast lonely plying
For thy bread from door to door
Till God heard thy bitter sighing
For His Wounds and for His Poor.

Blind to earthly pomp and glory
Thou didst see the Crucified
Where the scars that told Love’s Story
Smote thee hand and feet and side

And His Eyes upon the mountain
Left each burning wound with thee
As they looked upon the fountain
Of thy soul in ecstasy

To the Father glory giving
And the wondrous wounded Son
Let us glorify the living
Spirit ever Three in One.

Here is my quick rendition of the tune using flat.io:

Tune

And here’s the PDF

If you have more information on this hymn, I would love to be able to properly credit the author and composer.

UPDATE! This hymn was written by Shane Leslie (1885-1971) and appears in the New Westminster Hymnal. My rusty grasp of copyright law suggests that this means that I need to ask someone permission to publish these words. If you know who to ask, drop us a line!