Tag: love

New Year hymn, a resolution, perhaps – Infectious faith

1	Infectious faith we demonstrate by action,  
	when words are lived and people feel God's grace,  
	when platitudes are kept in quiet abeyance,  
	and love expressed through every human face.  

2	This is the witness we are called to offer: 
	the smile of welcome and the touch of care,  
	when every neighbour frames the Christ we honour,  
	the angel that we're greeting unaware. 

3	My friend, we cannot claim to grace the Godhead 
	when those who stand in tatters at our door 
	are turned away without a moment's notice,  
	while others sleep upon a stone cold floor.  

4	Our faith and love are nothing, simply empty,  
	just words we fling against a cloud filled sky,  
	when those we see derided, disregarded, 
	are left, without our protest, just to die. 

5	Are we to be just noisy, clanging cymbals,  
	or signs of hope upon this cold, dark earth?  
	Ours is the calling now to re-imagine 
	the love of God, to sign each person's worth. 

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2016 © 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: INTERCESSOR

Advent 1 – hymn – This is the time of waiting

Advent – a time of waiting – more than a calendar with sweets, more than an extra candle lit each Sunday, perhaps a time to move from darkness into light, from penitence to praise?

A hymn inspired by Isaiah 2:2

2:2 In days to come the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.

1	This is the time of waiting,
	the calm before the storm,
	the time of Advent judgement,
	the coming of the dawn;
	a time of recollection,
	of Christ's audacious hope,
	beyond imagination,
	outside our human scope.

2	The nations will be gathered,
	the age will be fulfilled,
	the judgement be enacted,
	as Christ had hoped and willed.
	But for this consummation
	such birth-pangs will be felt, 
	like rupturing of wine-skins, 
	the earth will heave and melt. 

3	For love to be exalted, 
	for hatred to be banned, 
	our human goals must shatter,
	division must be spanned. 
	A change of mind is needed 
	as we are turned around, 
	to move from desecration, 
	to find love's solid ground. 

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: 7 6 7 6 D
Tune: AURELIA

All Saints – All Souls – Remembrance



The 1st of November is All Saints Day; the 3rd All Souls Day. As we enter this period, culminating for many on the 11th November with Remembrance Day, and the 13th Remembrance Sunday, this hymn might be helpful for we who mourn, who remember those who have died. 

Some churches will recognise All Souls this coming Sunday. This hymn was originally requested for remembrance of people who had died of kidney disease and later included in a book: Hymns of Hope and Healing.



The lives we mourn have known their share of heartache, 
of human fear, uncertainty and shock,
and yet we also shared in love and laughter, 
our memories hold solid as a rock; 
for on through time remembrance will be treasured, 
we'll keep it close when joy is tinged with pain, 
we'll never lose the smiles that sign togetherness, 
and day to day we know that love will still remain.

 
We never know what waits in life's uncertainty, 
we never know what love, what joy, what fear, 
can build us up, or leave us lost and comfortless, 
afraid to face, again, the coming year, 
yet here are people who can hold their hands with us, 
can walk with us into the great unknown, 
and so together we can walk the path of life, 
and know that when we stumble love will still be shown.

 
So take my hand, my friend, my neighbour, walk with me, 
together we can face the passing storm, 
and know with God, in spite of tears and emptiness, 
there is a sense that new love can be born. 
In this we trust, for through our grief God held to us, 
and human arms have caught us when we fell, 
beyond this day each dawn will bring new hope for us 
that through God's love and grace and care all will be well.


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: 12 10 12 1012 10 12 12
Tune LONDONNERY AIR



Creator God: in lightning, clouds and thunder – a new hymn

Creator God: in lightning, clouds and thunder, 
I hear your voice, I sense the mountains shake.
But love is greater, causes me to wonder, 
and in this moment faith begins to wake.
 
    So I will sing in praise of all I see, 
    and in God's grace, I place my trust; 
    and through our lives may love confound our fear. 
    Sing praise to God, for God is love.
 
I look to stars, foundations of creation, 
reflections gleam from streams as I pass by, 
from mountain pass to shingle by the ocean,
the breath of God is moving with each sigh.
 
Within this world a human once embodied 
a depth of love beyond what had been known, 
a love that gave forgiveness once in dying, 
that we could find in life, that all could own.
 
And when my breath is ceasing as I’m dying
may grace confirm the hope that faith has given,
this human love that I have known in living 
grows firmer, deeper in the love of heaven.

© Andrew Pratt 29/9/2022