Another hymn for Maundy Thursday from Marjorie Dobson (see also 'A towel and a basin')
1 At the table of communion
Jesus spoke with heavy heart
of the pain of separation,
soon to tear them all apart.
Listening without understanding,
too absorbed with food and wine,
carefree friends could read no meaning
in his simple words and sign.
2 Bread was broken, as his body:
wine, a symbol of his blood.
Yet his call to keep that memory
was not clearly understood.
Judas left, but no one noticed,
thought his business was his own.
Jesus, looking round the table,
knew himself to be alone.
3 As they sang their psalm that evening,
then went out into the night
innocent of apprehension,
unprepared for fear or flight,
how their hopes and dreams were shattered,
confidence was turned to dread
and as chaos ruled around them,
one by one they turned and fled.
4 As they witnessed pain and horror-
trial, cross and guarded tomb-
they remembered Jesus' warning
given in that upper room.
Struggling hard to find the meaning,
in symbolic word and sign.
they would find that same communion
we still share in bread and wine.
Marjorie Dobson (born 1940)
Words © 2019 © Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Metre: 8 7 8 7 8 7 8 7
Tunes: DIM OND IESU; LEWIS FOLK MELODY
From UNRAVELLING THE MYSTERIES, along with poems and other readings.
Blogs
What news is good? A hymn inspired by: Luke 5: 1-11
What news is good? A hymn inspired by: Luke 5: 1-11
1 What news is good? What words give hope?
What sense of value do we feel
when meeting with our God in Christ,
what gives the sense, provides the seal?
2 This seal of perfect love and faith,
this hope of holiness and grace,
the knowledge that our path is right,
is given in our saviour's face.
3 A face seen in a neighbour there,
in one who calls across the street,
a foreign tongue may frame Christ's call
to honour him in all we meet.
4 And as the first disciples heard
a challenge they could not resist,
may we respond and give our lives,
the call of love must not be missed.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2012 © Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Metre: 8 8 8 8
Tune: FULDA
Candlemass Hymn
Candlemass – the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (Singing the Faith 229)
1 Mary and Joseph
Came to the temple
Brought the boy Jesus,
Offered him there.
People were waiting
Wanting to greet him,
Long had they sought him,
Solace for care.
2 Anna had prayed there,
Widowed, long waiting;
Worshipping God by
Day and by night.
Now she is praising,
Filled with elation;
Here is God’s promise,
Christ is her light.
3 Simeon sings now
God proffers blessing,
Brilliantly gilding
Dawn of his day;
Light in the darkness,
Never extinguished,
Light of all nations,
Light up our way.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 1997 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Metre: 5 5 5 4 D
Tune: BUNESSAN
The shadow of the Holocaust
The shadow of holocaust
gives no choice,
but to hear the oppressed,
to share each voice
of lament, and pain
and vow that never,
no never again
will we see in another
any less than human,
but the light, the divine.
Andrew Pratt 28/1/2025
Holocaust Memorial Day – Poem
1 As we remember holocaust,
in horror disbelieving
the history of the human race,
we share each other’s grieving;
God purge us of hypocrisy,
of all our self–deceiving.
2 Our language is inadequate,
unfit for the expression
of hatred that we visualise,
humanity’s confession;
we hurry headlong into hell,
we witness love’s regression.
3 The deepest, distant agony
that throbs through all creation,
the silent tears that quietly fall
in every generation,
are signs of our humanity,
our need for re–creation.
4 God give us strength to make a pledge
to move beyond contention,
to see, in each, humanity.
Through greater good intention,
God, move us toward a purer love,
a gracious intervention.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2003 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Please include any
reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use
requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd
8 7 8 7 8 7
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