"Bring Peace to Earth Again"

Our service opens this week with a musical prayer meant for all to participate. The piece, “Bring Peace to Earth Again,” functions as a Kyrie-like plea for peace on earth. The prayer features a recurring refrain, which all are invited to join in singing. Our cantor for this week, Zack Morris, will extend his arms as an invitation for you to join.

Here’s the refrain:

 

Hymnwriter Herman Stuempfle wrote the text of this hymn in response to the Oklahoma City bombings in 1995, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans as a result of the Bosnian War of 1992-95, and “as the result of considering the general state of the world.” The text was one of many published in his 1997 collection called Redeeming the Time: A Cycle of Song for the Christian Year. Take a look:

Where armies scourge the countryside,
and people flee in fear,
where sirens scream through flaming nights,
and death is ever near:
O God of mercy, hear our prayer.
Bring peace to earth again!

Where anger festers in the heart,
and strikes with cruel hand;
where violence stalks the troubled streets,
and terror haunts the land:
O God of mercy, hear our prayer.
Bring peace to earth again!

Where homes are torn by bitter strife,
and love dissolves in blame;
where walls you meant for sheltering care
hide deeds of hurt and shame:
O God of mercy, hear our prayer.
Bring peace to earth again!

O God, whose heart compassionate 
bears every human pain,
redeem this violent, wounding world
till gentleness shall reign.
O God of mercy, hear our prayer.
Bring peace to earth again!

For me, part of the power in Stuempfle’s words come from the formulaic nature of his text. In each of the first three verses, he employs two where/and couplets followed by the Kyrie-like refrain. (The Kyrie is the part of the service where we ask God for mercy.)

where x and y, where x and y --> Kyrie (Lord, have mercy, give us peace)

The final verse deviates from this formula and takes on a more general prayer nature, acknowledges God’s omnipresence in our hurt and pain, and asks for redemption. Still, it ends by employing the words of the Kyrie. 

In this Kyrie refrain, the composer of the melody makes use of a compositional device called text painting – a technique where the music reflects the literal meaning of the lyrics. Where the words read – O God of mercy, hear our prayer. Bring peace to earth again! – the contour of the music reflects a general descent from high-D to low-D. It is like peace is being bestowed from God above to the people below.

To quote the Italian words of the tune’s name, Pace, mio Dio. (Peace, my God.)