Tag: torture

Holocaust Memorial hymn – In these days as we remember

In these days as we remember
torture, holocaust and fear,
hear our prayer, our supplication,
wrung from hearts, soaked by each tear.
Tears have flooded through our nations,
pain has racked and broken lives,
now we vow to show through action
our compassion still survives.

If the voice of God is silent,
if disciples cease to speak,
then the voiceless and rejected
know the way ahead is bleak.
Let our faith be known in action,
in our depth of love and care,
in our choice identifying
with our neighbours in despair.

When the strength of our resistance
to the evil that we see
shows itself in selfless giving
of our lives then we are free,
free of cant and self-deception,
of hypocrisy and pride,
for we greet as sisters, brothers,
those that others would deride.

Andrew Pratt 22/1/2020
Words © 2020 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: CALON LAN; ST WINIFRED

 

Good Friday

There is no glory in this cross,
nor in a crown of thorn,
just hard derision, fearful hate
and rising human scorn.

There is no joy to see a son,
his tendons taut and strained,
he hangs, discarded garbage now,
his life blood dried, or drained.

How dare we alleluia praise,
or thank God for a gift
This heinous, human victory sees
humanity adrift.

We cannot cope with such a love,
it almost seems insane,
a counterpoint to what we seek.
We question it again.

And so we stand, if we will dare,
in shadow in this place,
and contemplate another time
Love’s dying, mortal grace.

Andrew Pratt 3/4/2019
Tune: ST FULBERT
For ‘Good Friday’.
Words © 2019 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.