Happy Fathers Day Gents!

Here are two versions of the Catholic hymn Faith of Our Fathers, by Father Frederick William Faber*. The first is the Irish/English version sung by Frank Patterson




Here is the more familar American Catholic version sung to the air St. Catherine by the Great Bing.

Faith of our fathers, living still,
In spite of dungeon, fire and sword;
O how our hearts beat high with joy
Whenever we hear that glorious Word!

Refrain

Faith of our fathers, holy faith!
We will be true to thee till death.

Faith of our fathers, we will strive
To win all nations unto Thee;
And through the truth that comes from God,
We all shall then be truly free.

Refrain

Faith of our fathers, we will love
Both friend and foe in all our strife;
And preach Thee, too, as love knows how
By kindly words and virtuous life.

Refrain

NOTE: Re­flect­ing Fa­ber’s Ca­tho­lic roots, the orig­in­al third stan­za was:

Faith of our fathers, Mary’s prayers
Shall win our country back to Thee;
And through the truth that comes from God,
England shall then indeed be free.

Thanks Dad!

* Faber attended the grammar school of Bishop Auckland for a short time, but a large portion of his boyhood was spent in Westmorland. He afterwards went to Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1835, he obtained a scholarship at University College. In 1836, he won the Newdigate Prize for a poem on "The Knights of St John," which elicited special praise from John Keble. Among his college friends were Dean Stanley and Roundell Palmer, 1st Earl of Selborne.
In January 1837, he was elected fellow of National Scholars Foundation. Meanwhile, he had given up the Calvinistic views of his youth, and had become an enthusiastic follower of John Henry Newman. In 1841, a travelling tutorship took him to the continent; on his return, he published a book called Sights and Thoughts in Foreign Churches and among Foreign Peoples (London, 1842), with a dedication to his friend the poet Wordsworth.
In 1843, Faber accepted the rectory of Elton in Huntingdonshire. However, there was a strong Methodist presence in the parish and the Dissidents packed his church each Sunday in an attempt to ridicule his Catholic leanings. Many of his parishioners were reputed to be living in sin and the village was notorious for its double standards.[1] Few people were surprised when, after a long, drawn out mental struggle, he left Elton to follow his hero Newman and join the Roman Catholic Church in November 1845. He translated Saint Louis de Montfort's classic Marian book True Devotion to Mary into English and was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1847.[2]
He founded a religious community at Cotton Hall, also known as St Wilfrid's, in the Archdiocese of Birmingham, called Wilfridians[3] (which ultimately merged in the Oratory of St Philip Neri, with John Henry Newman as Superior). In 1849, a branch of the oratory—subsequently independent—was established in London, first in King William Street, and afterwards at Brompton (Brompton Oratory), over which Faber presided until his death. In spite of his weak health, an almost incredible amount of work was crowded into those years. He published a number of theological works, and edited the Oratorian Lives of the Saints. [4]
Even as a Roman Catholic, Faber was a firm supporter of using the Authorized King James Version of the Bible. He wrote: "It lives on in the ear like music that can never be forgotton, like the sound of churchbells, which the convert hardly knows he can forget."[5]
He is the great-uncle of Geoffrey Faber, co-founder of the publishing house "Faber and Gwyer" which later became "Faber and Faber".[