I wrote the anthem There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy in January of 2018. The text by Frederick William Faber is one of mercy, inclusion, and love. This image he uses of God’s mercy being like the wideness of the sea is the seminal idea for the anthem. And, it is also the foundation for the tone painting throughout the anthem. 

I chose this text because it speaks to me on a very deep level. The words describe God’s love and grace as being as wide as the sea—we do not need to impose false limits of our own. There are many verses in the original poem. I chose four which I find particularly meaningful.

I am immensely grateful to Director Patrick Evans, Organist Cathy Shelton, and the First United Methodist Church Choir in Birmingham, Alabama for performing this anthem during a morning worship service. The recording is from November 2019.

Link to video. Link to score at Sheet Music Plus.

About Frederick William Faber

Frederick William Faber (1814-1863) was a theologian and English hymn writer. He came from a Huguenot and strict Calvinistic family background. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford and ordained in the Church of England in 1839. Faber was influenced by the teaching of John Henry Newman and followed Newman into the Catholic Church. In 1845 Faber converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism and was subsequently ordained to the Catholic priesthood.

Frederick Faber was a supporter of congregational singing and believed that Roman Catholics should sing hymns like those written by John Newton, Charles Wesley, and William Cowper. He sought to emulate John and Charles Wesley and used their hymns as models for their simplicity and intense fervor. Faber wrote 150 hymns and perhaps one of his best known is “Faith of Our Fathers.”

There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy  

There’s a wideness, there’s a wideness,
there’s a wideness, there’s a wideness,
a wideness like the sea.

There’s a wideness, there’s a wideness,
there’s a wideness, there’s a wideness like the sea.

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
Like the wideness of the sea:
There’s a kindness in God’s justice,
Which is more than liberty.

For the love of God is broader
Than the measures of our minds;
And the Heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.

If our love were but more simple,
We should live within God’s word;
And our lives would be more sunshine
In the sweetness of our Lord.

But we make God’s love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify a strictness
With a zeal not of God’s own.

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
Like the wideness of the sea:
There’s a kindness in God’s justice,
Which is more than liberty.

For the love of God is broader
Than the measures of our minds;
And the Heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.

There’s a wideness, there’s a wideness,
there’s a wideness, there’s a wideness, 
there’s a wideness like the sea.

There’s a wideness, there’s a wideness,
in God’s mercy,
in God’s mercy.

Frederick William Faber, 1854, alt.