Bred dina vida vingar,

o, Jesus, över mig,

och låt mig stilla vila

i ve och väl hos dig.

Bli du min ro, min starkhet,

min visdom och mitt råd,

och låt mig alla dagar

få leva av din nåd.

Thy holy wings, O Saviour,

spread gently over me

and let me rest securely -

through good and ill - in thee.

Oh, be my strength and portion,

my rock and hiding place

and let my every moment

be lived within thy grace.

This prayer from Sweden was suggested by the Bishop’s Chaplain in our link Diocese of Luleå. It’s the first verse of a much-loved hymn in the Church of Sweden, one of the few that many still know by heart. Sung to a Swedish folk tune, it’s frequently used at funerals. In fact, its author, Lina Sandell, wrote it in 1860 at a time of great personal mourning. Her father had drowned before her eyes on Lake Vättern, then one of her sisters had died, leaving several small children, and then her mother also.

The hymn’s opening image draws on one used by Jesus himself. Lamenting over Jerusalem, he’d wailed, “How often I longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing.” In a church overlooking Jerusalem (near, perhaps, where Jesus uttered these sorrowful words), the mosaic pictured here is set into the altar. It depicts the same ‘holy wings’ which the hymn describes spreading gently over us ‘through good and ill’.

How apt, then, that the Zoom performance offered here was made during the early months of the pandemic. The soloist, joining in from the hospital, wears her doctor’s uniform. She and all the other members of the Swedish choir La Capella wanted to bring comfort to those who had already lost loved ones, to reassure them that, vulnerable and grieving, they were being gathered up with infinite tenderness by Jesus.