There’s a wideness in your mercy, O God, and a kindness in your justice. Wider than the oceans and deeper than the seas, your mercy stretches from everlasting to everlasting. There is none like you, O God. Truly, none like you. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Many hymnals today include four stanzas of Faber’s original text, adapted from earlier publications of both eight stanza and a thirteen stanza versions of this text of invitation; one version was entitled “Come to Jesus.”  The text is often set to various traditional tunes (ST. HELENA and LORD, REVIVE US), but the opening line about God’s mercy being “like the wideness of the sea” was suggestive to me of a Scottish view of the North Sea, so I composed a melody and chording with a Celtic feel to them, selecting and slightly adapting several lines from the text most often found in hymnals today.  Because of the liquid, flowing nature of this melody, a “turnaround” has been provided as a suggestion for accompanists to keep the musical momentum going without break from beginning to end. 

Raised in the Church of England, Faber came from a Huguenot and strict Calvinistic family background. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and ordained in the Church of England in 1839. Influenced by the teaching of John Henry Newman, Faber followed Newman into the Roman Catholic Church in 1845 and served under Newman's supervision in the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. Because he believed that Roman Catholics should sing hymns like those written by John Newton, Charles Wesley, and William Cowpe, Faber wrote 150 hymns himself. One of his best known, "Faith of Our Fathers," originally had these words in its third stanza: "Faith of Our Fathers! Mary's prayers/Shall win our country back to thee." He published his hymns in various volumes and finally collected all of them in Hymns (1862).