Jerusalem, My Happy Home

The morning reading today included the hymn "Jerusalem, my happy home," and I was not familiar with it, so I flipped to the bibliography and found even more I didn't know. The author was listed as FBP, 1583, meter CM (8686) and it's in the public domain (you don't have to have permission to use it). Who is FPB? I asked self. My three little hymn story paperbacks were silent that such a hymn was in use, but I did find the hymn in "Lutheran Book of Worship" which we use in our traditional services (from mid-1970s). It added the tune name American, Land of Rest. So I turned to the internet and after 2 tries with AI which was really out to lunch, I found: "F.B.P. These initials appear over the text of ‘Hierusalem my happie home’ (‘Jerusalem, my happy home’*) in a manuscript book in the British Library (Add. 15,225). The hymn is of 26 4-line stanzas, entitled ‘A Song Mad (i.e. ‘made’) by F:B:P. To the tune of Diana.’ The text is based on a passage from St. Augustine’s Meditations beginning ‘Mater Hierusalem, Civitas sancta Dei’. In the version ascribed to ‘F.B.P.’ the text suggests a Roman Catholic origin (as opposed to a Protestant text by W. Prid, for which see JJ, p. 581). There are references to ‘Our Ladie’ who ‘singes magnificat’, to Saints Augustine and Ambrose, and to Mary Magdalene: ‘There Magdalene hath left her mone’. The initials..." I don't have a subscription to that source, so it's all I got.

Another full source (see link below) added some verses (different than what I was reading) and possible 2nd author. Both Catholics and Protestants use this hymn and there's no doubt that the author was in some danger for writing it.

Jerusalem, My Happy Home: Lyrics, Meaning & Story - Happy Sabbath

Advent

"By the 8th century, Advent, the origins of which are apparently to be found some three or four centuries earlier in Gaul, had become an integral part of the Christmas cycle and was understood to be the beginning of the church year. The season has two parts. From the first Sunday through December 16 there is an eschatological emphasis, and the days from December 17 to Christmas Even look toward Jesus' birth. The Nativity is thus properly understood as the guarantee of the second advent; as Christ came once in humility, so he will come again in glory." . . .

"in the single word "come" (Prayer of the Day, Lutheran Book of Worship) the prayer, which is addressed directly to Christ, voices the longing appeal of the church for the advent of its Lord." . . .

"The appointed color sequence is found for the first time at the beginning of the 12th century; usage varied. . . " from violet to purple, and now the preference listed in the LBW is blue. Commentary on the Lutheran Book of Worship, by Philip H. Pfatteicher, (Augsburg Fortress, 1990), chapter 5, "The Propers," p. 207