Earlier today I was thinking about my abuelita and how I used to watch her as she dutifully went about her daily chores singing the hymns of the church. She had so many favorites. William Cowper’s, “There is a Fountain” was one of them. Though I feel certain she didn’t know anything about who penned the hymn, you can read all about God’s faithfulness towards the tender soul who was William Cowper here. In the meantime, this is a beautiful rendition sung in Spanish by a men’s choir somewhere in Los Angeles. I hope you enjoy it! I know my abuela would!
Pensando en abuelita y “En el Monte Calvario”
Don’t worry, the rest of this post is in English! It’s just that I’ve been missing my grandmother all week.
Here she is during the last stretch of her pilgrimage on earth. She was pretty darn adorable, wasn’t she? Her sweet little face makes me want to say the very thing she used to tell all the little girls in the neighborhood: “Ay, que linda tu eres!” That means, “Oh, how pretty you are!”
Grandma didn’t have the easiest life. She carried, what Octavius Winslow once called, a “heavy, painful, yet concealed cross.” But, when I think about abuela, I don’t think so much about how she suffered. I think about a simple woman who, while far from perfect, understood what some seminarians can’t. A bloodless Christianity is no Christianity at all. In her living years grandma clung to that bloody, rough, rugged, splintery cross with everything in her. And in the end, God did not fail her. She received the crown of life.
I grew up listening to grandma sing the old classic hymns of the church. How beautiful she was when she sang to the Lord with all of her heart as she went about her day-to-day activities. One of her favorite songs was the “Old Rugged Cross”, or in Spanish, “En el Monte Calvario”.
As far as I know, she never heard this version (which you can purchase here), but it’s quickly become one of my favorites. Of course, it’s in Spanish, but you can sing along in English.
May these beautiful and eternal truths strengthen and encourage us to fix our eyes on Jesus and chose the cross over anything this world has to offer.
You can read the words in English here.