Hymn of the Day: ACS 985
Text: Ray Makeever (1943)
Tune: LET US ENTER IN, Ray Makeever

Ray Makeever wrote three musical settings of holy communion in the early 1980s when he was working at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in south Minneapolis. He credits that congregation with supporting him in this productive vocation of church composer/musician. This song sounds like a gathering song and may be used as one, but it was intended to be a sending song, with its ringing invitation to “enter in” to our broken world. In this entering, we understand ourselves as one of the “long line of people in need,” and are also confident that we enter into “a hope we can share.”

Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) was a composer from Nuremberg in the Middle Baroque period. He wrote sacred and secular music, and was a highly regarded organist and teacher. He knew the older generation of the Bach family and taught J.S. Bach's uncle. Pachelbel is particularly noted for contributing to the development of the Chorale Prelude and the Fugue, though his Canon in D is his most well-known piece today. Today's Toccata demonstrates typical characteristics of sounding somewhat freely improvised and flashy. Von Himmel hoch...(from high heaven to earth I come) is a Chorale Prelude where the long-noted melody is in the pedal part, surrounded by ornamented counterpoint in the manuals.