I would love to see a list of the hymns that just made the cut into Lift Up Your Hearts and those that just missed it. (Around half of the songs in the 1987 Psalter Hymnal—302 of 641 made it into LUYH). My own list of notable hymns that appeared in the Psalter Hymnal but were omitted from Lift Up Your Hearts has around 30 entries. Quite a few of these were written between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s and apparently the LUYH editors didn’t think they aged well. Here are seven of those (in roughly chronological order):

“The King of Glory Comes” (PH87 #370)

The king of glory comes, the nation rejoices. Open the gates before him, lift up your voices.

Willard Jabusch, a Catholic priest, wrote the lyrics for the lively Israeli folk song PROMISED ONE. According to the Psalter Hymnal Handbook, “The text was published in Hymnal for Young Christians (1966), one of the first English Roman Catholic hymnals published in the United States after Vatican II” (p. 526)

“Make Me a Channel of Your Peace” (PH87 #545)

Another post-Vatican II hymn, “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace” is a song I’m fine with tossing out of the hymnal. The lyrics are attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, but their first appearance wasn’t until the 20th Century. The tune is boring;  here’s the first line: F# F# F# F# F# G A F#.

It has been replaced by another version of the prayer, “Lord, Make Us Servants” (LUYH #904) set to O WALY WALY (“As Moses Raised the Serpent Up”). The prayer is also included as a responsive reading: “Prayer of St. Francis” (LUYH #860).

“No Weight of Gold or Silver” (PH87 #374)

I’m not as familiar with this one, but one of our accompanists told me she was very disappointed about its exclusion.

“Father, I Adore You” (PH87 #284)

Father, I adore you, lay my life before you. How I love you.

We sing this as our opening song every Sunday during Children and Worship (with hand motions). Surprisingly, it also isn’t in Sing with Me, our Sunday School hymnal. It’s only one line; they could have squeezed it into the white space below #600.

“Thanks To God Whose Word Was Spoken” (PH87 #281)

The text was written in 1954 and first published in the 1964 Methodist Hymnal. The tune was written 1974 but sounds like a much older traditional hymn.

“Praise the Lord with the Sound of Trumpet” (PH87 #569)

Praise the Lord with the sound of trumpet, praise the Lord with the harp and lute, praise the Lord with the gentle-sounding flute.

By the Natalie Sleeth, the composer of “Go Now in Peace” (LUYH #905/PH87 #317/SWM #231), which did make the cut, this is a catchy “catalog text” calling on musical  instruments and natural phenomena to praise the Lord. It was part of the repertoire at Trinity.

“Father, We Love You” (PH87 #634)

Father, we love you, we worship and adore you, glorify your name in all the earth.

This is another song we sang at Trinity. The Psalter Hymnal Handbook calls it “one of the finest praise choruses as well as prayer hymns from the mid-1970s.”

Next up: Notable psalm settings omitted from Lift Up Your Hearts.