Why, God, have you forsaken me

W S Plumer called it ‘The Gospel according to David’. This Psalm of the forsaken sufferer (not simply one who felt forsaken) and his vindication is clearly seen in the NT as a uniquely detailed foreshadowing of Christ’s passion, as well as heralding the arrival of his church. It is heard from his lips in the ‘cry of dereliction’ (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34). This takes the shouts of near-despair in Psalm 13 (for example) into altogether new dimensions, inexplicable by anything in the life of David or indeed any other figure except Jesus. This Psalm is quoted frequently in the NT; John Woolley, who calls it ‘autobiography before the events occurred’, is among those who point out that ‘We cannot reach the 23rd Psalm before we meet the 22nd’. John 10:11 encapsulates both; this one is prophetic, Christocentric, even ‘cruciform’. Other writers have warned against turning the ‘lament Psalms’ such as this into yet more songs of praise, in partparaphrases which censor out the agonised crying so forcibly expressed by the originals. This one, however, rises from ‘the cry of anguish’ (vv1–21) to ‘the song of praise’ (vv22–31)—Stott. Brian Foley’s version highlights some of the Psalm’s most telling phrases without making explicit their gospel fulfilment. It was published first in Psalms for Today (1990) with some stzs marked ‘men’ or ‘women’—possibly an editorial suggestion. Such labelled divisions have been avoided in the present book as not always relevant, but there is no reason why different groups or soloists should not take different parts. John Bell of the Iona Community has written a paraphrase with alternate sections; Martin Leckebusch’s (see no.1, note) is Lord, hear the lonely sufferer’s cry: ‘Why, God, have you forsaken me?’. The matching of this text with its tune is original to Praise! Griffith Hugh Jones composed LLEF (‘a cry’) in memory of his brother David H Jones, and it was published exactly 100 years before Foley’s words. But it originated with a music class in rural Wales; when the teacher played his new composition over, one of the boys forecast, ‘They’ll be playing that tune, Mr Jones, a long time after you have left this earth’. It has become the bestknown of his tunes, much-loved especially in Wales. See Cliff Knight, A Companion to Christian Hymns (1994), p91.

b Waterloo, Liverpool 1919; d 2000. St Mary’s Irish Christian Brothers Sch, Crosby, and Upholland Coll nr Wigan; ordained (RC Church) 1945. Served parishes in Liverpool, Bootle, Birkdale and (from 1971) Chorley, Lancs. A pianist and organist who regretted the loss of plainsong and traditional liturgy after the 2nd Vatican Council, and began to write hymns in 1958, ‘in sheer desperation at the appalling stuff our Church was using for hymns!’ (letter of 29 Jan 1979). Few of his early texts survive, but the first seeds of his later writing were clearly there. 14 of these, many based on Scripture, were included in the modernising New Catholic Hymnal (1971), in the compilation of which he had a share and which first brought him into much wider prominence and his work into extensive use. In including 2 of his texts in his revised edn of A Panorama of Christian Hymnody (2005), Paul A Richardson says that in him NCH had ‘discovered a brilliant new writer’ whose work is ‘very polished, modest and moving’. Foley’s expressed aim was ‘to base everything as far as possible on Scripture and theology, in simple language and avoiding Victorianisms, word inversions and exotic rhythms’ (quoted in the Companion to the Church Hymnal 2005). 2 of WBF’s best-known items are included here; another is in the 2004 CH and another is See, Christ was wounded for our sake, based on Isa 53. Baptist Praise and Worship (1991) features 3 of his texts. He should not be confused with the American John B Foley, another late-20th-c hymnwriter among RC clergy, nor with the RC Bp Brian C Foley (1910–1999). Nos.22, 220