O Sacrifice of Calvary

O Sacrifice of Calvary. Michael Saward* (1932-2015). The author locates the writing of this hymn at Edgware, North West London, ‘at some unspecified date in 1962’; certainly it was the second text he wrote: see the notes to ‘Christ triumphant, ever reigning’*. He surmises that it was designed for a ‘Twenty Club’ weekend house party at Tonbridge, Kent, when it was sung ‘at the concluding service of Holy Communion’. The tune SACRIFICE was later composed by W. J. Walter to accompany the words in Youth Praise 2 (1969), where the hymn was one of Saward’s two sacramental hymns in the ‘Cross and Resurrection’ section. The text was revised in 1968 and again in 1980 (for HFTC, 1982); the first four...