Cantica Sacra: Hymn Texts Based on Lectionary Choices

I am a retired minister of the Christian church (Disciples of Christ), living in the hills of the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia. During the course of my ministry, I tested various ways of exercising my habit of writing. I indulged in more or less academic prose. I investigated poetry in a number of ways. I tried my hand—not very successfully—at drama. I developed a variety of devotional schemes. I evolved a way with stories. And in the middle 1980s, I investigated hymn texts. These hymn texts came to be verse reflections on an upcoming scripture lesson which I would be preaching, set to a more or less familiar hymn tune. I found the hymn texts, which I called Cantica Sacra, useful and helpful; as a result, they continue to invite my development regularly. This is all a part of my habit now as I live in retirement with my wife of forty-eight years, a pair of dogs, a handful of cats, and a pair of Pekin ducks.