Ash Wednesday Hymns
i. Introit - Distant Easter Light
- We bow almost in gladness to the ash
Which leads by days of penitence to palm:
The structure of the forty days that pass
Protecting pilgrims from the Devil's harm. - And yet the sorrow of this gloom steeped night
Marks out the way for our still Wintry gaze:
At last we see the distant Easter light
And measure time until we feel its rays.
ii. Gradual - Lenten Silence
- My God I stand before Your throne,
Filled with the penitence of ash
To cease from things that I have done
To put Your Son beneath the lash. - The palm from which the ash was made,
The symbol of a fickle crowd,
Reminds me how our ardours fade
Not least where we proclaim most loud. - May Lenten silence be my guard
Against unruly piety,
For even if I find this hard
It offers what You want of me.
iii. Offertory - My Heart
- Jeus, take my heart
For it is all Your own,
The heart that wandered far
Now stands before Your throne
In penitence renewed
That I may see Your face,
Yet all has come about
Through Your abiding Grace. - Jesus, break my heart
And put it back again
More like the heart that bled
When You were cruelly slain
By sins my heart composed
Or at the least ignored,
Which watched with distant gaze
As blood was meekly poured. - Jesus, bind my heart,
That You have kindly broke,
With penitence and prayer,
And through the love I speak:
That love is warm but sad
In Lenten garments dressed
That it may quietly live
Within Your sacred breast.
iv. Communion - Dust
- Dust from Your hands is dust indeed,
Fitted by You for what we need,
Fitted for love, though often weak
When we fall short of what You seek. - Dust from Your hands is dust unknown
When sprinkled from Your heavenly throne,
Yet sprinkled on this doubtful earth
To show in flesh Your sacred worth. - Dust from Your hands makes us divine,
Partaking in the bread and wine,
Partaking in Your very self
Where we will find unending wealth. - Dust from Your hands to dust returns
But where it rests a fire burns,
A fire burns to witness You
As source of love, divine and true.
v. Anthem - Moon Dust Not Star
A. We, pocked and smoothed like weathered stone,
Erroded by the wind and rain,
Stand dull and lychened in the grass
Low monuments upon the plain.
B. For we of Adam, earthly sojourning
Accept our humble state born of a loving King:
Not ours the dazzling garb of righteousness
But myriad tiny moons lit by the sun's brightness:
C. In hope and love we shine,
Alight with faith,
Not with presumption of a Heaven secured
By who we are;
We are moon's dust not star:
A. We, scorched without but cleansed within,
Seared with the Spirit's searching fire,
Shine bright and etched against the sky,
Earth's monuments of Heaven's desire.
vi. Recessional - Beckoning
- On this first solemn night of Lent,
We leave in quiet love of Thee,
Resolved to take the pilgrim road
In reverence and humility. - Our banners have been furled and wrapped,
Our trumpets have been swathed and stowed,
For this grim stretch of twists and turns
We will stay quiet on the road. - When darkness at its most intense
Appears to bring eternal night,
Then is the time better to see
The beckoning of the Easter Light.