Patterico's Pontifications

8/12/2018

Sunday Music: Bach Cantata BWV 84

Filed under: Bach Cantatas,General,Music — Patterico @ 12:23 am



It is the twelfth Sunday after Pentecost. The title of today’s Bach cantata is “Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Glücke” (I am content with my fortune).

Today’s Gospel reading is John 6:35, 41-51.

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

. . . .

At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

“Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

The text of today’s piece is available here. It contains these words:

I eat my little bit of bread with joy
and heartily leave to my neighbor his own.
A peaceful conscience, a happy spirit,
a thankful heart, that gives praise and thanks,
increases its blessing, sweetens its need.

In the sweat of my brow
I will meanwhile enjoy my bread,
and when my life’s course,
the evening of my life, is concluded,
then God will hand out the pennies to me,
then heaven will stand open.

Happy listening!

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]


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