Category: Bible

Once transfiguration blinded – a hymn

Some of you will remember the hymn, ‘Stay, Master, stay upon this heavenly hill’.
As the disciples want to continue in the purer air of the mountaintop, to stay eternally, Jesus
rebukes them:


No, saith the Lord, the hour is past, we go;
Our home, our life, our duties lie below.
While here we kneel upon the mount of prayer,
The plough lies waiting in the furrow there.


And the disciples respond:


There we must do it, serve him, seek him still.
The following hymn continues this theme of being lost in such wonder that we forget the needs that
we are called to meet:

Once transfiguration blinded 

1 Once transfiguration blinded 
those who climbed to follow Christ, 
seeing through a mist of glory, 
just a glimpse at once sufficed; 
just a glimpse of holy heaven, 
earth and heaven neatly spliced. 

2 Light can blind us to the sorrow, 
to the pain of poverty, 
light of holy exaltation, 
or the light of being free:
free of fear of want or hunger 
resting in complicity.

3 Lost in thunder, bathed in wonder, 
hands uplifted should we praise, 
while, in destitution, neighbours, 
wait for weeks, not merely days,
for the crumbs dropped from a table
that austerity displays.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2018 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
Tune: WESTMINSTER ABBEY (Purcell)

A hymn in a shattering, divided world…perhaps?

Reflecting on the world in which we live, what can we, should we sing?

Hymns should at least allow for the expression of everything to which the Psalms give voice. And I am including those words over which we tend to be rather squeamish. This interpretation of Psalm 137 was attributed to John Donne but was probably written by Francis Davison (circa 1633-69):

        Happy, who, thy tender barnes

		From the armes

	Of their wailing mothers tearing,

	'Gainst the walls shall dash their bones,

		Ruthless stones

	With their braines and blood besmearing. 
[Donne, J., The Poems of John Donne, Edit. H.J.C. Grierson, Oxford 1912, p426].

And why should I want to sing this or anything even distantly emotionally related to it? Because sometimes that is how I feel and the Psalms testify to the fact that God can cope with us feeling like that.

Not finding such a hymn in my own denomination’s hymn book at the turn of the millennium, and reflecting on the plight of refugees, I wrote these words. And are they, perhaps, redolent of those of opposing opinions, experiencing hatred and fear, in our world, in our countries today?

1	When anger is our highest creed,

	revenge the motivating force;

	God, understand our depth of hurt,

	our need for action, not just thought.



2	Ejected from what makes us safe,

	familiar ground and well-known names,

	we sicken for the things we've seen,

	all sense of hope and courage drains.



3	We cannot celebrate our faith,

	and faith lacks meaning, all is lost;

	for nothing is as it once was,

	we cannot ever bear the cost.



4	So, God, what should we do or say?

	What is there left of love or life?

	What mitigating cause or plea

	will rid us of this pain of strife?



5	Amid our sense of grief and loss

	where nothing now can be the same,

	stand in the midst of shattered faith;

	rebuild, renew, and raise again.



Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)

Words © 2001 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: LM

Tunes: PLAISTOW; KEDRON(Dare)

Jesus casts out an unclean spirit from a man in a synagogue – Mark 1: 21 -28 – a new hymn


A man convulsed and crying 

was turning to and fro’, 

but Jesus reached to meet him 

to bid the spirit go.

The language of this story 

sounds foreign, to our speech

yet still our health can test us, 

when faith seems out of reach.



Great God, in Christ you show us 

that love can cast out fear, 

the fear that can assail us,

or those that we hold dear.

In times of desolation, 

or  times of deep  distress. 

mid loneliness bring friendship 

bring love to lift and bless.



If hearts and thoughts are twisted,

when nothing is secure

may ones like Christ stay near us, 

to show that love is sure,

to hold us through disturbance, 

as we will hold them too

when shadows cloud your presence

we’ll see each other through.



Andrew Pratt 20/1/2024

Words © 2024 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.D

Tune: CRUGER; PENLAN

Christ netted fishermen – the first disciples

Christ netted fishermen, called them to follow, 

challenged them squarely, called each one by name; 

hearing the carpenter they would be joiners, 

lives changed forever, they’d not be the same.



On down through ages the people have wondered, 

wandered, exploring then what it might mean

if they could risk it, to mirror this hist’ry

joining the narrative, sharing each scene.



Now in this moment, then, let us consider:

dare we love freely the outcast, despised, 

reach out with kindness to those now rejected, 

in them see Jesus, though lost or disguised.



Andrew Pratt

Words © 2024 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

We strain to hear the voice of God – hymn Epiphany 2

Hymn: We strain to hear the voice of God



We strain to hear the voice of God,

this God who knows us inside out, 

a whispered voice of gentleness 

that never seeks to force or shout.



Christ's voice was heard in Galilee 

by those who had the ears to hear, 

he challenged hypocrites with truth 

while sinners, sensing love, drew near.



His crazy, crafted way of life, 

gave little hint where it might lead,

and yet the people followed him,

each word of Christ met hidden need;



for he addressed with present sense

a desert way of wilderness, 

or else the intellectual task 

within the city's busyness.



'Come follow me', hear Jesus say, 

to those who answered to his call; 

and in our present time and place 

may we respond and give our all. Amen.



Andrew Pratt Words © 2011 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: GONFALON ROYAL
Second Sunday after Epiphany, 1 Samuel 3: 1-10 (11-20), Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18; John 1:43-51