There’s A Wideness In God’s Mercy

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,

Like the wideness of the sea;

There’s a kindness in His justice,

Which is more than liberty.

There is welcome for the sinner,

And more graces for the good;

There is mercy with the Savior;

There is healing in His blood.

For the love of God is broader

Than the measure of man’s mind;

And the heart of the Eternal

Is most wonderfully kind.

If our love were but more simple,

We should take Him at His word;

And our lives would be all sunshine

In the sweetness of our Lord.

FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER (1814–1863)

BROUGHT UP as a Calvinistic Anglican, Frederick Faber was ordained in the Church of England. But at the age of thirty-one, he converted to Roman Catholicism, following his friend John Henry Newman. Rebaptized as Father Wilfred, he founded a community known as “Brothers of the Will of God.” In 1849 Newman asked Faber to open an oratory—a place of prayer. When Faber opened his oratory, it soon became a place of both prayer and music, much like the famous Oratory in Rome.

Faber was concerned that British Roman Catholics did not have a heritage of hymnwriters like Watts, Wesley, and Newton. He began writing hymns so that Catholics, too, could be a hymn-singing people. Just as there is “a wideness in God’s mercy,” so was there a breadth to Faber’s hymns, which soon became more familiar to Protestants than to Catholics.

Acknowledge that the Lord is God! He made us, and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.

Psalm 100:3-5