Where Tiber winds through ancient streets

1.
Where Tiber winds through ancient streets,
and sunlight warms the stone,
we walk the ways where saints have prayed
and seek Christ’s peace made known.

2.
At Lateran, the mother church,
we lift our hearts in praise;
for unity the Spirit stirs
through all our pilgrim days.

3.
At Mary’s shrine on Esquiline,
her quiet grace we claim;
she gathers us in steadfast love
and bears Christ’s holy name.

4.
By Peter’s tomb the great dome stands,
its light a call to prayer;
apostles’ witness binds our steps
in hope we gladly share.

5.
At Paul’s long road beyond the walls,
his fire of faith still burns;
his longing for one heart in Christ
to every age returns.

6.
So may this visit sow the seeds
of peace the Lord has sown;
till Canterbury and Rome rejoice
as one in Christ alone.

Hymn information

First line: Where Tiber winds through ancient streets
Text: Michael McFarland Campbell
Metre: CM
Tune:
Theme: Ecumenical relations

Reflection

I did not set out to write a “topical” hymn.

And yet, as I followed the visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah, to Pope Leo XIV in Rome, something in me stirred that felt deeper than commentary. It felt like recognition—and, if I am honest, something personal.

Because I do not come to this as a neutral observer.

I am an Irish Anglican.

But I am also someone who, for a time, submitted to Rome while I was in Oxford—drawn by its coherence, its sacramental life, its sense of continuity. And then, at a moment when I needed pastoral care, I found myself returning to the Church of Ireland—not out of rejection, but out of need.

That journey has never quite left me.

So when I wrote this hymn, I realised I was not simply describing a visit between churches. I was, in some sense, writing from within that space between them.

Walking Between Two Homes

The opening verse—“we walk the ways where saints have prayed”—now feels truer to me than I first realised.

Because that is what it has felt like: walking.

Not choosing one path and abandoning another entirely,
but carrying something of both—sometimes uneasily—as I go.

At the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran, the “mother church,” I could not avoid the question of belonging. What does it mean to speak of “motherhood” in the Church when one’s own journey has not been straightforward? And yet, I left the line in place. Not as a claim I have resolved, but as one I am still learning to pray.

At Santa Maria Maggiore, Mary became, for me, less a point of division and more a quiet presence of holding. In my own movement between traditions, I have come to see how often she gathers rather than separates—how she keeps pointing beyond herself to Christ.

Beneath the dome of St Peter’s Basilica, I felt again that deep pull of apostolic continuity—something I recognised in Rome, and yet never wholly lost in Anglicanism. The line “apostles’ witness binds our steps” is, perhaps, my way of holding those together without forcing them to collapse into one another.

And at Saint Paul Outside the Walls, Paul’s longing for “one heart in Christ” felt less like an abstract ecumenical goal and more like a personal prayer.

Why This Visit Matters to Me

In Ireland, church divisions are not theoretical; they are woven into identity and memory. When I see an Archbishop of Canterbury received in Rome, I don’t see an abstract gesture. I see a mirror of the tension I carry myself: not contradiction, but longing.

The final verse—“till Canterbury and Rome rejoice as one in Christ alone”—is a hope I cannot let go of. It is not a hope that denies difference or imagines easy solutions. It is a trust that what is divided in us—in our institutions and within our own lives—is not beyond the reach of Christ.

The Road is Still Open

This hymn comes from that “in-between” place. It is not written from a position of resolution, but of pilgrimage. When two leaders meet and pray, they remind people like me that the Church is still walking. Somehow, even in the in-between, Christ is still holding us together.

Copyright 

© Michael McFarland Campbell. 2026. 
Permission granted for local church or parish use with attribution. Not for commercial reproduction.

Written recently and shared here as part of the NeuroDivine hymn collection.