This hymn comes to us from Hymns of the Saints, the hymnal of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (RLDS), with headquarters in Independence, Missouri. The author writes concerning the hymn: “During the summer of 1965, I was serving staff of the church youth music camp being held at Graceland College. The first day of camp I experienced an allergic reaction in which my whole body was covered with hives, and I felt too ill to leave my room participate in the activities of the day. I became despondent and wondered why the Lord allowed this to happen when I felt my services were needed in the camp. My thoughts then turned to the many who have permanent disabilities and cannot serve the Lord in conventional ways, and how many of them still found acceptable ways to serve Him in their infirmities. Surely I could do no less. Immediately a feeling of gratefulness for my many blessings overshadowed the negative thoughts, and I realized the great privilege it is to be able to serve the Lord under any condition. I felt the urge to record these thoughts in poetic form and was truly blessed as the words flowed easily. It has been a great joy for me to find that these words seem to express the feelings of many others who sing them. During the time of that despondency, the Lord chose me to be an instrument in His hands.”

Raymond (Ray) L. Gunn was born September 11, 1925, in Fort Madison, Iowa. After graduation from high school there, he served in the U.S. Seabees during World War II. After the war he studied at Graceland College, Lamoni, Iowa, and then at Drake University, where he received a master’s degree in music education. He did further graduate study in music and English at Omaha University and the University of Missouri. After teaching high school bands for 13 years in Iowa, he moved to Independence, Missouri, where he is teaching in the Kansas City, Missouri, public schools. He has done pastoral and youth camp work, and was an elder in the RLDS Church for many years. He now attends the Blue Ridge RLDS Church in Independence, where he is an elder, plays the organ, directs the handbell choir, plans the services, and formerly directed the vocal choir.

ST. COLUMBA was set to two different texts in the Irish Church Hymnal, 1874, where it carried the heading “Hymn of the Ancient Irish Church.” Charles V. Stanford (see SDAH 32) printed it in his Complete Collection of Irish Music as Noted by George Petrie, 1902, where the caption was “Irish hymn sung on the dedication of a chapel-County of London- derry.” (Erik Routley says that the delightful triplet in the second line was not a part of the original tune, but was the invention of Stanford.) The tempo needs to be slow enough so that these triplet notes have a dignity and grace. Ralph Vaughan Williams (see Biographies) can be credited for matching this tune with “The King of Love My Shepherd Is” in the English Hymnal, 1906, a combination that is found in many hymnbooks today. The tune is named after the celebrated Celtic saint (A.D. 521-597) who carried the gospel from Ireland to Scotland by way of Iona in A.D. 563. The name St. Columba is highly revered in northern Ireland; the Protestant cathedral in Londonderry was dedicated to him.

Charles Stanford wrote an organ piece founded on the tune, in Six Short Preludes and Postludes, 1907, Opus 101, No. 6.

📖 Reference: Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal by Wayne Hooper and Edward E. White. Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1988.