Blogs

A poem for Holocaust Memorial Day

A poem for Holocaust Memorial Day, 27th January, and going forward. Today we still need to remember our human capacity for inhumanity, that the Holocaust took place in a democratic country with a democratically elected government, and still within living memory. Remember, many of the perpetrators saw themselves as ‘Christian’.



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.

Hymn remembered thinking of Tonga and the Pacific

Tectonic plates beneath the ocean's surface,
uplifted, twisting life and limb and wave.
The landscape that was home has lost its features,
we wonder there are any left to save.

An empty chair amid such devastation
where cars like toys, are lifted, spun about;
and here we wait and pray in helpless anguish;
and 'where is God' we want to cry and shout.

Incarnate God we need your present spirit
to live within your people at this time,
to energise our prayerful words and actions,
to offer grace to life's discordant rhyme.

God offer hope to those who feel forsaken,
to those whose lives have spun and turned around;
to those whose grief defies all consolation,
bring grace and love and hope and solid ground.

Words: Andrew Pratt (born 1948) © 2011 (alt by author 2022) Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, www.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: 11.10.11.10.

Suggested tunes: Highwood (StF 3; H&P 236); Intercessor (H&P 411)

Hymn for Holocaust Memorial Day – 27th January

1	Deep contradictions, not cosy solutions,
	come when our faith and experience collide.
	Pain and its purpose, the holocaust's image,
	loving and hurting, are found side by side.

2	Here in the tension of unresolved conflict,
	logic and passion will vie for each heart;
	here in life's crucible, melting and moulding,
	God has a purpose and we play a part.

3	Here, where the spirit is forging, transforming
	lives that are open to challenge and change;
	God in each paradox fathoms potential,
	source of the pattern we measure and range.
	
Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2008 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:11 10 11 10
Tune: EPIPHANY HYMN

Hymn for Jesus Manifesto – Luke 4: 14 – 21

In Nazareth it happened,
folk heard with bated breath,
the good news Jesus offered 
of life instead of death.

This was the manifesto:
a charter for the poor,      
a welcome for the stranger 
who’d waited at the door.

Within a cell the captive 
would hear the freedom call,
and those who felt injustice
know healing was for all.

Oppression would be banished.
Yet hypocrites recoiled,
drove Jesus from their presence, 
but he would not be foiled.

And in this time and context 
will we still have to wait,
or dare we risk and follow, 
before it is too late?
Andrew Pratt 17/1/2022
Words © 2022 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: 7.6.7.6
Tune: THE CHERRY TREE CAROL (repeat last two lines of each verse)
Based on Luke 4: 14 – 30 (the Lectionary for this coming Sunday is Luke 4: 14 – 21)
An alternative version below follows a slightly different rhythm.

Alternative words:

In Nazareth it happened,
the folk held their breath;
the good news Jesus offered 
was life instead of death.

And this was the promise:
a gift for the poor,      
a welcome for the stranger 
who’d waited at the door.

Within a cell the captive 
would hear freedom call,
and those who felt injustice
know healing was for all.

Oppression would be banished,
hypocrites recoiled,
drove Jesus from their presence, 
but he would not be foiled.

And in this time and context 
we still have to wait;
or dare we risk and follow, 
before it is too late?
Andrew Pratt 17/1/2022
Words © 2022 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,