Mary – hymnsandbooks

Kyries for Holy Innocents – Herod’s high and mighty stand

1	Herod's high and mighty stand
	Showed the power at his command,
	Slaughtered children in the land:
	Kyrie, Lord have mercy, 
	Kyrie, Lord have mercy, 
	Kyrie, Lord have mercy on us. 

2	Mary wept, she understood,
	Wept as every mother should,
	Ramah's echo, death to good:
	Chorus 

3	Surely force has had its day,
	Brutish whim and power's display;
	Yet our actions hurt betray:
	Chorus 

4	Seen on every paper's page,
	Words of hate and fists of rage,
	Signs of greed in every age:
	Chorus 

5	Anger still inflicts the pain,
	Each excuse is seen as lame,
	Yet again we bear the shame:
	Chorus 

6	Till through this and every time
	People cease from heinous crime,
	Till with peace their actions rhyme:
	Chorus 

VERSION IN SONGS FOR A NEW MILLENIUM (7 7 7 D and refrain) 

1	Herod's high and mighty stand
	Showed the power at his command,
	Slaughtered children in the land:
	Mary wept, she understood,
	Wept as every mother should,
	Ramah's echo, death to good:
	Kyrie, Lord have mercy, 
	Kyrie, Lord have mercy, 
	Kyrie, Lord have mercy on us. 

2	Surely force has had its day,
	Brutish whim and power's display;
	Yet our actions truth betray:
	Seen on every paper's page,
	Words of hate and fists of rage,
	Signs of greed in every age:
	Kyrie, Lord have mercy, 
	Kyrie, Lord have mercy, 
	Kyrie, Lord have mercy on us. 

3	Anger still inflicts the pain,
	Each excuse is seen as lame,
	Yet again we bear the shame:
	Till through this and every time
	People cease from heinous crime,
	Till with peace their actions rhyme:
	Kyrie, Lord have mercy, 
	Kyrie, Lord have mercy, 
	Kyrie, Lord have mercy on us. 

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)	
From: Whatever name creed, No.28 (1999) & Songs for the new millennium.
Words © 1999, 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.
Tune: HOLY INNOCENTS (Ian Sharp) Whatever name creed, No.28

Advent 3 Magnificat has come to stay – inspired by the Magnificat

A topsy, turvy, upturned world, 
where values are distorted, 
the first is last and last is first 
with everything contorted.
The rich are begging at the door 
while ones they were despising
are given charge of Godly wealth, 
in stature they are rising.

Magnificat has come to stay,
the proud have been extinguished; 
the humble poor are lifted high, 
their poverty relinquished. 
The reign of God has come to pass 
rebutting our world's choices, 
each one that we would count as last 
within this time rejoices.

And will we ever find a place 
with pride and wealth rejected, 
or will hypocrisy deny 
our need to be accepted? 
The choice is ours, the crisis dawns, 
the time to make decisions, 
to stand with God or walk alone 
within this world's divisions.

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: 8.7.6.7 D
Tune: CONSTANCE

Young Mary

1     	Young Mary, survivor, alone in the world, 
	for that’s how it seemed to the mind of this girl. 
	An angel had promised the birth of a son, 
	but Mary just wanted to hide or to run. 

2     	Much less of a blessing, less joy to the earth, 
	the sound to her ears of the promise of birth; 
	unmarried, herself little more than a child, 
	the thoughts in her mind were horrendous, ran wild. 

3     	Would Joseph abandon her now in her need? 
	Would he share the faith of our latter-day creed? 
	More likely to leave her alone to her end, 
	now wounded by bias, no longer her friend. 

4     	That God could conceive to abandon, mistreat: 
	a sordid beginning, a birth on the street; 
	that Mary should taste wrath at such a young age; 
	the cross threw its shadow across the world’s stage. 

5     	Before she could magnify God in her song, 
	she had to confront all the world in its wrong, 
	the things in her mind she could not reconcile, 
	the world’s misconceptions and Herod’s cruel guile. 

6     	We sing of a manger, we tell of a birth, 
	our sentiment colours its moment and worth: 
	as deity seems to collude with the state 
	sing glory, sing Mary… before it’s too late. 

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) 
© 2015 Stainer & Bell Ltd. 
11 11 11 11

A tension stalked the stage – another Advent/Christmas hymn

The gospel reading of the Fourth Sunday in Advent tells of the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth and Mary’s prophetic song which we know as the Magnificat (Luke 1: 39-55). This Sunday’s hymn reaches further than this. It has for its background an occupied country, a census involving a journey and the song of a young woman which anticipates the birth of a child who will bring radical challenge and change to the world – if only we would hear and follow him…

A tension stalked the stage, 
an occupying force, 
and in this context Mary sang. 
The world could alter course.
Once humbled by her God, 
demeaned, yet she felt blessed, 
her life now mingled joy and pain, 
from now she'd never rest.

And those in every age 
are challenged by her song, 
the paupers free to pray again - 
for those who did them wrong;
while princes are appalled,
for those who once held power 
will find their status racked right down, 
and that within this hour.

For where injustice meets 
with worship lived and prayed, 
the social order swings around, 
the powerful are dismayed;
and that includes us all, 
our power is sapped away, 
while genuine humility 
at last will have its day.

Andrew E Pratt 
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: DSM
Tune: LEOMINSTER

Easter Day

Easter

Rainbow Cross

Suffocating night 
smothering, 
obliterating
the broken bloody body 
hammered hard, 
staining scarlet 
that cross 
of rough-cut wood

and thunder crashed 
the doom of death.

Then darkness fractured, 
light splintered, 
fragments of colour 
shot out into the brilliance 
of a multi-coloured Easter morning 
in a green garden.

And an empty cross 
rainbow-wrapped, 
images the promise 
of the death-defying dawn 
of new hope.

Marjorie Dobson © 2019 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.
From Unravelling the Mysteries, Stainer & Bell Ltd., 2019.

Quite early one morning © Andrew Pratt

A strange new day

This is the day
when perfume remained unopened,
spices were no longer needed,
cloths and sponges were unused.

This is the day
when stone was no barrier,
soldiers abandoned guard duty,
grave clothes and tomb were empty.

This is the day
when the unexpected became reality,
a man asked awkward questions,
uttered unlikely proclamations.

This is the day
when bewilderment ruled,
fear was ever-present,
obedience the only option.

This is the day
when women left hurriedly,
uncertain and warily,
to tell a strange story
to an unbelieving audience,

For they did not know it,
but this is the day
when everything changed:
death was defeated,
new life was beginning,
hope overwhelming despair.

This is the day
of resurrection.

Marjorie Dobson © 2019 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.
From Unravelling the Mysteries, Stainer & Bell Ltd., 2019.

Come in the morning

Come in the morning.
Come see the dawning.
Come to the garden –
life has broken through.

Jesus, dead and buried.
To his grave they hurried.
Anxious women found that
life had broken through.
Chorus

Soldiers could not keep him
for they were found sleepiing
and the tomb was open –
life had broken through.
Chorus

Peter, unbelieving,
left, still full of grieving.
Nothing would convince him
life had broken through.
Chorus

Mary, greatly shaken,
thought he had been taken.
Heard his voice that told her
life had broken through.
Chorus

Where there was despairing,
grief and horror sharing,
now there is a rumour
life has broken through.
Chorus

So God’s word is spoken,
when our hearts are broken
there will come a time when
new life will break through.
Chorus

Mary Magdalene

My name is Mary,
common enough in my time
to need to be identified by place, or family.
Mine is such a name.
They call me the Magdalene.

People call me other names.
Some claim I was a prostitute,
perhaps because the town whose name I bear
is famous for that trade.

Others question my sanity
and ask why it was necessary for that exorcism
of troubling devils to be performed.
They probably call me mad.

The other followers, male, of course,
know me as ‘one of the women’,
useful for everyday tasks, but mainly disregarded.

So on that day -
when all hope had drained after his execution,
the future seemed bleak and empty
and even the tomb appeared to have been raided
and his body stolen –
it was hardly surprising that the men ignored me,
ran back to the city and left me to weep alone.

The voice was kind and questioning
and I sobbed my story, not expecting help.
But it came, in one word.
‘Mary,’
from one who spoke my name as if it mattered.

My name is Mary.
His name was and is and always will be,
Jesus.

Safe, locked inside that upper room

Safe, locked inside that upper room,
too scared to let the truth be known,
disciples had to see their Lord
before that truth could be their own.

And Thomas, still so full of doubt,
would not believe the tales they told
till Christ appeared, to show his wounds -
then his conviction made him bold.

Yet doubts and fears returned again.
Once more they locked themselves away
until the Holy Spirit came
on that inspiring, vital day.

The truth is now a living fact.
The love of God can never die.
So bold apostles stood their ground –
their living Lord is not a lie.

We have not seen, but we believe
and we must witness by our faith
to living truth we have received,
awakened by the Spirit’s breath.

Poem: When what we thought was mystery

When what we thought was mystery
is rooted in the common place,
and God is found in those who love,
and those we love by grace;
then we have grasped the Christmas story,
reached its heart, beheld its glory.

When scourge and cross are recognised
in images from round the earth.
When we admit complicity
and gauge compassions' dearth;
then we have grasped the Easter story,
reached its heart, and felt its glory.

When love and justice magnify
and even mercy has no end;
when hostages find liberty
and enemies are friends;
then we have grasped the Spirit's story,
reached its heart, expressed its glory.

Andrew Pratt © 2004 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.