Canticle of Judith

If you aren’t familiar, Judith is a book in the Old Testament—one of the ones that isn’t included in the Bibles that Protestant’s use. Because so much praise and worship music is written by Protestants (and, by the way, thank you to all the Protestants who write such beautiful praise and worship music!), I wanted to write a song focused on these Scriptures, to give Judith a “voice” she might not otherwise have. 

I put the lyrics together based on Judith chapter 16—her song of victory (the one used in the Liturgy of the Hours). Mary, Anna, and I wrote the music together. Mary suggested really cool chord changes while Anna helped create the melody line. 

Anna does an incredible job on this song. She has a beautiful and powerful alto voice, one that doesn’t get featured enough in the summer conferences. Don’t blame me! Most of the contemporary worship music written these days starts low and ends high, so we wrote a chorus that starts high but ends in a lower register where Anna’s vocals really shine. 

Judith is the story of a beautiful woman who saves her people by getting the enemy commander drunk and cutting off his head! Yeah, the Old Testament has stuff like that in it. Early Church fathers suggested she was a foreshadowing of Mary, the one who would cut off the head of the serpent to save her people. The verse, “But the Lord saved his people by the hand of a woman” (Judith 16:5) is used in an antiphon on Mary’s feast days. 

We recorded this video live in “The George,” the music center on campus named after my dad. We’ve got two more live videos coming your way over the next few weeks, as well as a couple of lyric videos. I hope you are blessed by them. If you haven’t done so yet, please support this project! And if you have, spread the word to others to let them know about what we are doing. On behalf of Mary, Anna, and myself, we are so grateful for all the support we have received so far. CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT “THE HOURS!”