Pax Tua (words by Sebastian Temple, from a prayer sometimes attributed to St Francis)
1. Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there is hatred let me bring your love;
Where there is injury your pardon Lord,
And where there's doubt true faith in you.
Chorus O master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love with all my soul.
2. Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there's despair in life let me bring hope;
Where there is darkness let me bring your light,
And where there's sadness bring your joy.
Chorus O master grant …
3. Make me a channel of your peace.
For when we give we will ourselves receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And in dying that we gain eternal life.
Ultra Verba (words by Isaac Watts, slightly amended)
Come dearest Lord descend and dwell
By faith and love in every breast,
Then shall we know, and taste, and feel
The joys that cannot be expressed.
Come, fill our hearts with inward strength,
Make our enlargèd souls possess
And learn the height and breadth and length
Of your immeasurable grace.
Now to the God whose power can do
More than our thoughts or wishes know,
Be everlasting honours done
By all the Church through Christ his Son.
Amen.
Charis (words by John Newton from II Corinthians 13:14)
1. May the grace of Christ our Saviour
And the Father's boundless love,
With the Holy Spirit's favour,
Rest upon us from above.
2. Thus may we abide in union
With each other and the Lord,
And possess in sweet communion
Joys which earth cannot afford.
Mirror of Grace ( copyright © 2009 John N MacNeill)
1. In the heart, in the head, let us choose to be led
in lives that walk humbly with God.
Let us be of a mind to treat all humankind
as loved by the saviour of souls;
respond to forgiveness beyond any scale,
to mercy unbounded by time,
with a lively new trust, recognising we must
show love like the love that we know.
2. Let us make common cause that transcends moral laws
to side with the broken and poor,
with the weak, with the sad, whether good, whether bad,
the shameful, the outcast, the slave;
to live with a comeliness pleasing to God,
respecting our duty to love,
to be taste, to be sight, to be salt, to be light,
to be a true mirror of grace.
And when God … (John N MacNeill copyright 2009)
1. And when God was creating the fabric of space,
and causing the start of time,
did his all-seeing gaze scan the ages to come,
and ponder how things would be,
how we would spurn the creator's ways,
and cause our God to grieve?
Was the act of creation the stamp of his love
to people as yet unborn?
2. And when God was intending to send us his son,
to show us the way to be,
to put flesh on his purpose, to walk on the earth,
to brave the response of men,
could not the cost or the risk in this
have made him change his mind?
Was there nothing God's wisdom could think of instead,
avoiding the blood and pain?
3. And when God is replacing the fabric of space,
and making an end of time,
will his all-seeing gaze scan the years that have past,
and ponder how things have been,
how pride or death or our falling short
could not defeat his will
that the cosmos be healed and that none should be lost,
that everything be made whole,
that everyone be made whole?
Once there came to earth (words by Dorothy Angus, amended)
1. Once there came to earth
a child of lowly birth;
far from home the tiny stranger
lay becradled in a manger,
Jesus came to earth.
2. Little Jesus grew;
both joy and grief he knew.
When he reached his manhood glorious,
over sin he lived victorious,
strong in love he grew.
3. Then himself he gave,
the whole wide world to save:
sin and strife and hatred slew him,
only those who loved him knew him,
Jesus strong to save.
4. Jesus still can bind
in love all humankind.
To the manger, humbly kneeling,
still they come for help and healing,
weary humankind!
5. Now let people sing,
all praise to God we bring,
“Peace on earth”, we hail the blessing,
sent from heaven for our possessing,
Jesus, Saviour, King!
God is love (words by Timothy Rees)
1. God is love: let heaven adore him;
God is love: let earth rejoice;
let creation sing before him
and exalt him with one voice.
He who laid the earth's foundation,
he who spread the heavens above,
he who breathes through all creation,
he is love, enternal love.
2. God is love, and is enfolding
all the world in one embrace;
his unfailing grasp is holding
every child of every race;
and when human hearts are breaking
under sorrow's iron rod,
that same sorrow, that same aching,
wrings with pain the heart of God.
3. God is love: and though with blindness
sin afflicts and clouds the will,
God's eternal loving kindness
holds us fast and guides us still.
Sin and death and hell shall never
o'er us final triumph gain;
God is love, so Love for ever
o'er the universe must reign.
Faith Distilled (copyright © 2012 John N MacNeill)
1. How shall I come into the presence of the Lord,
and bow myself low before the most high god?
Shall I approach him in fine Sunday clothes?
Will the Lord be pleased with respectability?
You know very well people what is good!
For what does the Lord require of you,
but to be just, to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your god.
2. How shall I come into the presence of the Lord,
and bow myself low before the most high god?
Shall I approach him in long pious prayers?
Will the Lord be pleased with the money that I give?
Let us break bread together (words based on Afro-American original)
1. Let us break bread together in the Lord;
let us break bread together in the Lord:
when I fall on my knees,
with my face to the rising sun,
O Lord, have mercy on me.
2. Let us drink wine together in the Lord;
let us drink wine together in the Lord:
3. Let us praise God together in the Lord;
let us praise God together in the Lord:
Som Stranden (Swedish words by Anders Frostenson translated by Fred Kaan)
1. The love of God is broad like beach and meadow,
wide as the wind, and an eternal home.
God leaves us free to seek him or reject him.
He gives us room to answer Yes or No.
The love of God is broad like beach and meadow,
wide as the wind, and an eternal home.
2. We long for freedom where our truest being
is given hope and courage to unfold.
We seek in freedom scope and space for dreaming,
and look for ground where trees and plants can grow.
3. But there are walls that keep us all divided;
we fence each other in with hate and war.
Fear is the bricks and mortar of our prison,
our pride of self the prison coat we wear.
4. O judge us, Lord, and in your judgement free us,
and set our feet in freedom's open space;
take us as far as your compassion wanders
among the children of the human race.