"O God, Whose Hand Has Spread the Sky"

My favorite nightly hymn from the Liturgy of the Hours

Photo by Elmer Cañas on Unsplash

I’m deep into reverse outlining my manuscript. This helps me organize the major events, themes and the character arch to help me better develop the plot and subplots in the next draft. It’s a lot of work but I have found it gratifying seeing all twenty-two chapters laid out, summarized and categorized. It also shows me that I have a lot of work to do.

One of the things that I try to do every night is read the Liturgy of the Hours (also known as Holy Hours). It’s not actually an hour but just a curated collection of readings from the Bible. There is a morning, evening and night reading but I have only been able to do the night reading on a regular basis.

I wanted to share the nightly hymn that is at the beginning of my reading. It is probably my favorite hymn because it grounds me with its demonstration of the absolute power and absolute love of the Holy Trinity—God, Christ and Spirit. That and I like its rhymes!

Here it is:

O God, Whose Hand Has Spread the Sky*

O God, whose hand has spread the sky,

And all its shining hosts on high,

And painting it with fiery light,

Made it so beautiful and bright.


Who, when the fourth day was begun,

Did frame the circle of the sun,

And set the moon for ordered change,

And planets for their wider range.


To night and day, by certain line,

Their varying bounds you did assign;

And gave a signal, clear and meet,

For months begun and months complete.


Enlighten, then, the hearts of men;

Polluted souls make pure again:

Unloose the bands of guilt within;

Remove the burden of our sin.


Grant this, O Father, ever One

With Christ, our sole begotten Son,

Whom with the Spirit we adore,

One God, both now and ever more.

* “The Liturgy of the Hours”, January 2025, Word on Fire

Text: Caeli Deus sanctissime, attributed to Pope St. Gregory the Great,

translated by J.M. Neale

Read that a few nights in a row and I don’t think you’ll ever stop!

Peace.