This page is provided so that you can hear the tunes of items which we use in church. Mostly they are written by the vicar. Please note that they are copyright - we are very happy to give permission to you to use them, but we would like to hear about it. Please include any use on your Christian Copyright Licence returns.
Down this page:
- the words,
- the story,
- the sheet music,
- media player.
Remember me
Remember me
"Remember me," said Jesus, "Take this bread.
It means my body crucified and dead.
My soul is filled with sorrow and with dread,
and yet I give my life that you'll be fed.
My flesh is meat indeed," our Saviour said.
"Remember me," said Jesus, "Take this wine.
It represents my blood - a living sign.
Draw near and drink this cup, for you are mine.
Receive my life poured out: as I decline
I institute a covenant divine."
So bread and wine now mean his flesh and blood,
to be received by faith and understood
as cleansing souls and bodies by the flood
poured out for us upon the cross of wood,
all on that dreadful day, which bought our good.
As I draw near, my Lord, as I receive,
to you my Saviour and my friend I cleave.
O help my unbelief, for I believe.
O fill me with your Spirit, and relieve
the fears which rise as I approach life's eve.
As we draw near, Lord God, to share this meal,
we ask your grace, that deep divides may heal.
Bind us anew to Jesus, so reveal
the unity you give, that we may feel
your Spirit move among us, true and real.
Words and tune copyright © John Hartley 2006.
Story behind the song
The music for this hymn came first - at General Synod in July 2006 we sang Owen Alstott's metrical version of the Benedictus (1991) to Bernadette Farell's tune (1993, published by OCP Publications, Portland), and I was very struck with the music. I wondered if it was possible to produce something similar in the minor mode, and initially tried to write the tune in 5/2-time ... but it didn't work that way and eventually I settled on the 3/2 version.
To use the tune I felt I needed a hymn in which every line would rhyme - to divide the rhymes between lines would somehow not fit the effect I wanted. The theme came to me after a discussion of a communion song on the Christian Songwriting Organisation e-mail list. Most hymns about Holy Communion take a fairly Catholic line on its theology - Holy Communion is a subject which interests Anglo-Catholics much more than it interests Evangelicals - and I feel there is a lack of hymns which try to say positively what reception of the bread and wine might mean to those who take a reverent but not a high-church view of the sacrament. This hymn was the result.
I wanted to recapitulate the words of Jesus, and to use the words "means" and "represents" to explain what Jesus meant by "This is my body / blood". I wanted to say that reception means receiving Jesus, and especially the "benefits of his precious death and passion" (Book of Common Prayer); and it can be meaningful and precious to those who view it in that way. I wanted to say that "communion" should be not only an individual act of reception, but also a recognition of the body of Christ in the assembly of believers in fellowship - and that true reception therefore involves a commitment to Christian unity focussed on Christ. And I wanted to include the "epiclesis" (prayer that the Spirit would come) and mention all the three persons of the Trinity who are present.
John Hartley
Windows Media Player. When you click the left-hand "play" button your computer should have started to play the tune. If it didn't, you might be able to get the tune by clicking here, or by right-clicking the link, choosing "save target as", saving it onto your computer, and then opening it with a music-playing program.
Please remember that a midi file of a tune isn't supposed to be a state-of-the-art musical arrangement - it is only supposed to give a basic idea of how the tune goes. Any reasonable organist / keyboard player / music group could make it sound far better.