Fresco by Giotto di Bondone - Courtesy of Wikipedia
Sower and Seed of Man's Reprieving is by Monsignor Ronald A. Knox (1888 - 1957). In the Divine Office (1974) it is sung at Morning Prayer on the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord. The Office recommends the hymn tune: Les Commandements de Dieu by Louis Bourgeois (c.1510–1560) as it's musical setting. An alternative tune that can all be used is St. Clement, as featured in the following video.
The hymns used in the Liturgy of the Hours on the Ascension of Our Lord reflect the themes of heaven and earth. In the following video Fr. Robert Barron from Word On Fire Ministries lends his own perspective on the Ascension. To best understand it, he explains that Christians need to recover a Jewish sense of heaven and earth. When Jesus prayed: "as it is on earth as it is in heaven", he was expressing the ancient Jewish concept of heaven and earth as impinging on each other. Instead, many in modern times have, without realizing adopted Plato's view of earth, and indeed even our own body as a prison from which we long to be freed. The other world is 'up there' in a spiritual realm, and 'down here' we live in a world of matter; the two are distinct and unrelated. After the Ascension, the disciples stand looking up at the sky in a manner more fitting for a Platonist. But then, two men dressed in white garments (denizens of heaven) chastise them: "Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.” Acts:1, 10-11. They are reminding the Apostles of their mission "to do all they can to bring about the Kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven."
The Head That Once Was Crowned with Thorns was written is 1820 by Thomas Kelly (1769-1854). Born in Dublin, Ireland, Kelly took Holy Orders in the Church of England in 1792. He would eventually leave the Anglican Church, and set up a local independent congregation where he preached and lead worship services which included some of the 765 hymns he wrote during his life. The Head That Once Was Crowned with Thorns is set to the tune, Saint Magnus (Nottingham) written in 1707 by English baroque composer and organist, Jeremiah Clarke (c.1659-1707). In the Liturgy of the Hours it is used on Ascension.
THE HEAD THAT ONCE WAS CROWNED WITH THORNS by Thomas Kelly, 1820 (Public Domain)
1. The head that once was crowned with thorns
Is crowned with glory now:
A royal diadem adorns
The mighty victor’s brow.
2. The highest place that heav’n affords
Is surely his by right:
The King of kings and Lord of lords,
And heav’n’s eternal light.
3. The joy he is of all above,
The joy to all below:
To ev’ryone he shows his love,
And grants his name to know.
4. To them the cross, with all its shame,
With all its grace, is giv’n:
Their name an everlasting name.
Their joy the joy of heav’n.
5. The cross he bore is life and health,
Though shame and death to him;
His people’s hope, his people’s wealth,
Their everlasting theme.
