Jesus the Very Thought of Thee

Jesus the Very Thought of Thee is known by several other titles, including, "Jesu! The Very Thought is Sweet!", "O Hope of Every Contrite Heart" and "Of Him Who Did Salvation Bring."  We typically sing only three or four of the fifteen verses Bernard wrote.  Bernard wrote words for five other hymns including eleven verses of "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded," (we are familiar with the message of this hymn from # 197 of our hymnal, "O Savior Thou Who Wearest a Crown of Piercing Thorns.")

I found the following information regarding the composer and lyricist at cyberhymnal.org.

Words by: Bernard of Clairvaux 

Born: 1091, in his fa­ther’s cast­le at Les Fon­taines (near Di­jon), Bur­gun­dy.
Died: Au­gust 21, 1153, Clair­vaux, France. 

Bernard’s fa­ther Te­ce­lin was a knight and vas­sal of the Duke of Bur­gun­dy. Ber­nard was ed­u­cat­ed at Cha­ti­llon, where he was dis­tin­guished by his stu­di­ous and med­i­ta­tive ha­bits. He en­tered the mon­as­tery of Ci­teaux (the first Cis­ter­cian in­sti­tu­tion) in 1113. Two years lat­er, he was sent, with 12 other monks, to found a daugh­ter mon­as­te­ry in the Val­ley of Worm­wood, about four miles from the Ab­bey of La Ferté, on the Aube. He rose to em­i­nence in Church po­li­tics, and be­came em­broiled in the pa­pal schis­ms of the 12th Cen­tu­ry. He was well known in Rome, and found­ed 163 mon­as­ter­ies through­out Eur­ope. The Ca­tho­lic En­cy­clo­pe­dia car­ries a large ar­ti­cle on him. 

Bernard was a man of ex­cep­tion­al pi­e­ty and spir­it­u­al vi­tal­i­ty. Mar­tin Lu­ther, 400 years lat­er, called him, “the best monk that ever lived, whom I ad­mire be­yond all the rest put to­ge­ther.” 

Music by: John Bacchus Dykes, 1823-1876, England 

At age 12, Dykes be­came as­sist­ant or­gan­ist at St. John’s Church in Hull, where his grand­fa­ther was vicar. He stu­died at Wake­field and St. Cath­er­ine’s Hall in Cam­bridge, where he was a Dikes Scholar, Pre­si­dent of the Cam­bridge Uni­vers­i­ty Mu­sic­al So­ci­e­ty, and earned a BA in Clas­sics. In 1848, he be­came cur­ate at Malton, York­shire. For a short time, he was canon of Dur­ham Ca­thed­ral, then pre­cent­or (1849-1862). In 1862 he be­came Vi­car of St. Os­wald’s, Dur­ham (he named a son John St. Os­wald Dykes, and one of his tunes St. Oswald). 

Dykes pub­lished ser­mons and ar­ti­cles on re­li­gion, but is best known for com­pos­ing over 300 hymn tunes. In his mu­sic, as in his ec­cles­i­as­tic­al work, he was less dog­ma­tic than ma­ny of his con­temp­o­rar­ies about the the­o­log­ic­al con­tro­ver­sies of the day—he oft­en ful­filled re­quests for tunes for non-Anglican hymns. In ad­di­tion to his gift for writ­ing mu­sic, he played the or­gan, pi­ano, vi­o­lin, and horn.

Jesus The Very Thought of Thee

Jesus, the very thought of Thee

With sweetness fills my breast;

But sweeter far Thy face to see

And in Thy presence rest.

No voice can sing, nor heart can frame,

Nor can the memory find

A sweeter sound than Thy blest name,

O Savior of mankind.

O hope of every contrite heart,

O joy of all the meek,

To those who fall, how kind Thou art!

How good to those who seek!

Jesus, our only joy be Thou,

As Thou our prize wilt be;

Jesus, be Thou our glory now

And thru eternity.