Tag: hate

When sense is damaged, limiting perception – hymn – inspired by Mark 9: 30-37

When sense is damaged, limiting perception – inspired by Mark 9: 30-37


1 When sense is damaged, limiting perception,
God’s love will not diminish or betray,
for we are held in grace and loving kindness,
in pain, through grief and hardship, come what may.


2 The love of God defies our understanding,
God reaches to the depths of our despair
absorbing hate, discerning fear and anguish,
enabling, healing, wholeness and repair.


3 Our God is patient with our human frailty,
a strength in weakness when we slip or fall,
and so just as we are we come to worship
to offer back to God our all in all.


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.

Metre: 11.10.11.10

Tune: HIGHWOOD

A troubled soul – a hymn for Lent 5

A troubled soul, the Christ of God – inspired by John 12: 20-33

1	A troubled soul, the Christ of God, 
	humanity exposed, 
	with all the turmoil that we feel, 
	when choices are proposed.
	The monumental choice he faced, 
	the crisis must be met, 
	to take the path of love to death, 
	or turn away, forget.
	
2	The riddle of the grain of wheat 
	was told with fear and dread, 
	yet mention of new fruit gives hope 
	that God might raise the dead. 
	The loss of life, the gain of life 
	are tangled in this game, 
	yet those who live in love of God 
	are held within love's frame.
	
3	So Jesus chose and we must choose, 
	which path we are to take, 
	the one which will deny God's love 
	or cause the earth to quake.
	God give us courage to deny 
	the self that harbours hate, 
	to trust in your eternal grace, 
	before it is too late.

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: DCM
Tune: ELLACOMBE

New Advent hymn – A quiet chill that freezes expectation

A quiet chill that freezes expectation, 
the hope of love seems distant and remote 
as war and hate are whirling all around us, 
we wait for light of which the prophets wrote.

There is no peace, no reconciliation 
as factions fired by hatred seethe and kill, 
when will it end, this constant devastation, 
when will we learn to listen, to be still? 
[When will we listen to each other, share one will?]

This advent season, dawn of love’s foundation 
is born in darkness of eternal night, 
and yet a flicker bids us hasten onward, 
as purple shadows hint at morning light.

And in this moment in our preparation 
let’s put aside our fripperies and fear, 
to make new space for gracious re-creation.
Come God, in love at last, come now, draw near. 
[Come God infuse your love in us, O come, draw near.]

Words Andrew Pratt © 2023 © 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
Tunes: INTERCESSOR, [LONDONDERRY AIR]

Note: Using the tune: INTERCESSOR sing as a four verse hymn. Ignore words in [square] brackets.
Using LONDONDERRY AIR combine verses 1 & 2 and 3 & 4 to make a two verse hymn using the use the words in  [square] brackets for the last line of each verse.

A hymn for Holy Week – Rising gloom surrounds the story

Rising gloom surrounds the story,
Jesus moves towards the cross,
here Jerusalem is waiting,
favour swings from gain to loss.

Crowds had swarmed in adulation,
many came infused with hope.
Every person sought an outcome,
nothing seemed beyond his scope.

Zealots called for liberation, 
sinners waited on his word,
children ran with palms to meet him,
felt affirmed by what they heard.

Other people simply bustled,
thought their lives beyond reproach,
when the Lord came riding humbly,
hardly noticed his approach.

In the temple, tables turning,
those in power were disabused
as he showed the way to worship
for the poor, despised, abused.

Choices faced him in the garden,
prayer was dry, betrayal lurked;
while his closest friends were sleeping,
human evil waited, worked.

What is left? some trumped-up charges?
Self-conceit? Religious hate?
Here the Christ still stands before us -
time for judgement ... crosses wait.

Andrew E. Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2006 © 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 
ADORATION (Hunt)