MD Daniel Brace explains why St Peter’s Catholic Church, Toorak is paying tribute to the Australian hymn writer and poet.

It was the words of the hymns which caught my attention. After careful consideration, I realised that two of the hymns sung regularly at my local parish of St. Peter’s Toorak [in Melbourne] had a common author, poet James McAuley (1917-1976). Add the popular Easter hymn By your kingly power, O risen Lord, and it seemed that here was was a significant contributor to Australian hymnody.

This year, 2017, is the centenary year of the birth of James ‘Jim’ McAuley, celebrated poet, jazz musician, Professor of English (University of Tasmania) and political figure of his time. Originally published in 1963, McAuley’s contribution to hymnody is contained in the Hymns for the Year of Grace, a collection of sacred poems set to music by McAuley’s friend and contemporary Richard Connolly (b. 1927). In the forward to the 2012 reprint of the collection, Connolly states that an essential quality of a good hymn is that it should be “‘poetic”.

McAuley’s poems are full of references to music, song, musical forms – such as chorale, prelude, etc –...