This sixteenth-century French Catholic hymn was penned by Jean Tisserand, a popular Parisian preacher and Franciscan friar who founded a home for wayward girls around 1492. The text (O filii et filiae) first appeared in print between 1518 and 1520; scholars pinpoint this window from a political poem in the same pamphlet referencing the French dauphin’s betrothal to Henry VIII’s daughter Mary, plans abandoned around 1520. The English translation by John Mason Neale (1851) originally contained twelve stanzas; our hymnal uses nine. The melody, Gelobt sei Gott, was composed by Melchior Vulpius in 1609. The text explicitly retells the narrative of Thomas encountering the risen Christ, making it the appointed Hymn of the Day for this Sunday when that very Gospel is read.
Sung at Our Saviour
2026