Category: Hymns

For a continuing time of COVID – HYMN/PRAYER – When the weeping of the nations

 When the weeping of the nations 
 fills our hearts with holy dread, 
 when a virus rings with pity 
 those who cannot reach their dead,
 God is in our consternation, 
 weeping by each sufferer’s bed. 
  
 Distanced, lacking human comfort,
 no more in a mother’s arms, 
 fearful faces peer through visors 
 watching, even breathing harms, 
 knowing only humane kindness 
 brings the peace that heals, disarms. 
 
 God bring strength in human weakness, 
 give us grace that we might see 
 through the mists of mortal blindness 
 how to live through agony, 
 how through quiet compassion, silence, 
 we might mark our empathy.

Andrew Pratt 31/12/2020
Words © 2021 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England. http://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.
Tune: PICARDY    Metre: 87 87 87
  

New Year verse reposting – Ring out wild bells (adapted)

 1 Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
 the flying cloud, the frosty light:
 the year is dying in the night;
 ring out, wild bells, and let it die.
 
 2 Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
 for those that here we see no more;
 ring out the feud of rich and poor,
 ring in redress for humankind.
 
 3 Ring out each slowly dying cause,
 archaic forms of party strife;
 Ring in a new regard for life,
 with open borders, fairer laws.
 
 4 Ring out false pride in birth and creed,
 the civic slander and the spite;
 ring in the love of truth and right
 ring in the end of human need.
 
 5 Ring out the curse of poverty.
 Ring out the grasping lust of wealth.
 Ring out those things that harm our health,
 Ring out old wars, bring unity.
 
 6 Ring in a time when all are free,
 a time when none will fear to stand
 when all are welcome in this land.
 Ring in the Christ that is to be.
 
 Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) alt. Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
 © 2014 Stainer and Bell Ltd.

An unmarried mother gave birth in a stable

 
  1 An unmarried mother gave birth in a stable, 
 some saw a fulfilment of all they had heard, 
 to others this story, the birth of the Godhead,
 was more than amazing, was frankly absurd.
 
 2 Some delved into scripture and said that a virgin, 
 was destined to carry a child who would grow 
 to be a Messiah, salvation for nations, 
 and others would question how history could know.
 
 3 So back to the story, now Bethlehem beckons, 
 a carpenter-pawn come to sign for the state, 
 the bureaucrats needing a list for taxation 
 and everyone hurries before it's too late.
 
 4 A legend would grow up of shepherds and magi, 
 no snow at this Christmas beneath a night's sky. 
 A man who would die as a crucified preacher 
 was born with sparse shelter as people passed by. 
 
 5 And so came the story of birth in a stable, 
 of Bethlehem's journey, a virgin and child. 
 And lost is the essence, the mystery and wonder, 
 of God born among us abused and reviled.
 
 6 Much later a soldier saw God in this prophet
 a man  who would love to his very last breath 
 the dying, the hopeless, those outside religion,
 and all those beside who had shared in his death.
 
 Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
 © 2018 Stainer and Bell Ltd.
 12 11 12 11
 Tune: STREETS OF LAREDO; ST CATHERINES COURT