Category: worship

A hymn for reflection and penitence at the New Year’s turning – How can people praise…

1	How can people praise the Godhead,
	save in humble penitence?
	How can we avoid the verdict
	of these years' indifference?
	If our God has come among us
	then we have betrayed a call;
	out of selfish pride our grasping
	puts our gain ahead of all.

2	If that God was born among us
	then the people of that birth
	suffered taunting and derision,
	persecution on this earth.
	Driven from their given cradle,
	scattered seeds upon the wind;
	Christians led that desecration
	and, we wonder, will it end?

3	Holocaust, crusades, apartheid,
	inquisition, slavery,
	all have had a Christian presence,
	justifying butchery;
	every century adds locations
	pictured on a map or chart
	scenes of human devastation
	hatred honed, become an art.

4	Now we stand and, just like Peter,
	we've no cause to strut or crow,
	we are self-deceived if claiming
	righteousness, our debts you know:
	debts of love we owe each other,
	debts we never can repay;
	for two thousand years' denial
	Lord forgive, for this we pray.

5	Enter rooms of desolation,
	bring your love to cleanse, to spare;
	'Peace be with you', once you uttered,
	let us hear and let us share;
	bring us from this darkest moment
	into dazzling, gleaming light,
	as the new year’s day is dawning
	end the horror of our night.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2001(alt 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: 8 7 8 7 D
Tunes: CONVERSE; MANOR HOUSE

St Stephen, Martyr

1	Stoned Stephen: martyr for the cross, 
	a witness to the grace of Christ; 
	the love of God, the Spirit's power;
	at one in Christian sacrifice.
	
2	He spoke of love, and lived the life 
	of one who challenged human wrong, 
	and when he had to make a choice, 
	Christ's Spirit lived and he was strong.
	
3	Today we stand in line with him, 
	or do we falter, turn away?
	The challenge may not be as great, 
	but God, give strength we plead and pray. Amen.

Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
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.
8 8 8 8
Tune: GONFALON ROYAL

I saw three ships – a contemporary re-working by Daniel Charles Damon

I am grateful to Daniel Damon, a well known hymn writer, jazz musician and composer from the USA who has offered a new perspective on this text, so fitting, sadly, for our contemporary world:
I saw three ships come sailing in
on Christmas day, on Christmas day;
I saw three ships come sailing in
on Christmas day in the morning.


And what was in those ships all three
on Christmas day, on Christmas day;
and what was in those ships all three
on Christmas day in the morning?


The hungry and the poor were there
on Christmas day, on Christmas day;
the hungry and the poor were there
on Christmas day in the morning.


Those yearning to be free were there
on Christmas day, on Christmas day;
those yearning to live free were there
on Christmas day in the morning.


If we will serve and welcome them
on Christmas day, on Christmas day;
if we will serve and welcome them
on Christmas day in the morning;


Then all the bells on earth shall ring
on Christmas day, on Christmas day;
then all the bells on earth shall ring
on Christmas day in the morning.

Words and Music: English traditional; Music arr. and vss. 3-6 Daniel Charles Damon © 2022 Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL 60188. All rights reserved. Used with permission. Please report any use of this through your copyright licence, or approach the copyright holder for permission.

Tune: I SAW THREE SHIPS
Metre: Irregular
Topical Index: Christmas, Hospitality, Refugee, Migration, Social Justice
Scripture: Luke 2:1-20, Leviticus 19:33-34; Matthew 2:1-12; 13-23; Hebrews 13:2

Daniel says: I have loved and played this English carol for years but struggled with the ancient text. I wrote some new stanzas that may give this carol new liturgical use. Carl Daw helped me finish this text.

Dan Damon’s recordings can be found here

His printed music is here

Three ships, watercolour copyright Andrew Pratt

Poets struggle, sculptors risk…

One gospel (Mark) doesn’t mention the birth of Jesus. The other three relate it in different ways. This has led me to reflect on the way in which different arts attempt to give expression to the nature of God. 

Poets struggle with the language, 
words both mystic and absurd 
fail to frame the incarnation, 
giving flesh to living Word.

Art constrained by expectation 
will not let the colours go, 
only spreading, mixing media 
emulate the Spirit’s flow.

Sculptors sometimes risk the fracture, 
letting stone dictate the form, 
giving rise to new creation 
chance God shattering our norm.

Even music caged in bar lines 
lacks the freedom to expand,
till in jazz, through improvising, 
rhythms stretch to new demands.

Nothing ever fixed or final, 
way beyond the human mind:
mystery and imagination…
all that we will ever find…
© Andrew Pratt Written 17/12/2022

             Incarnation – Watercolour © Andrew E. Pratt

A hymn reflecting on Christmas now…Where is Jesus…

A hymn reflecting on Christmas now…

Where is Jesus, where is Mary,
where is Joseph in this crowd,
here where commerce feeds subversion,
elevates the rich and proud.
Mother, father and a baby,
shoved by bureaucratic creeds,
soon to cross a nation’s borders,
crowds will denigrate their needs.
           
Lasers beaming, neon flashing,
shop fronts pleading, ‘buy me now!’
Wealth and poverty colliding,
life, as then; not different now.
Prejudice just feels expedient,
strangers just a common threat,
is a pang of conscience stinging?
Is God near in our regret?
           
Here amid the city’s rumble,
God incarnate can be found,
yet our sentiment, this tinsel,
numbs our feeling, muffles sound.
May the Christ be found in Christmas,
here in every act of grace,
here in foreign and familiar,
seen in every human face.
Andrew E. Pratt (born 1948)

Words © 2015 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 DTune: ST WINIFRED (Cradled in a manger meanly)