We are all children of God in Christ Jesus:
come, let us give thanks and praise!
Glory to the Father…. Amen.
To you alone, Creator God,
Eternal joyful peace belongs:
Your heav’nly choir for ever sings
Their praise in endless festal songs.
But we, of sanctity bereft,
Bleak lives of pain and toil have known:
How could we here in exile sing
The songs of our Eternal Home?
O Father, still your promise lives:
That those who weep shall blessèd be;
Then help us now to mourn the sins
That banish us from sanctity.
But as we weep, Lord, give us faith
And hope though plagu’d with sorrows sore,
Until the day you bring us home,
And all our joyful songs restore.
To Father highest praises be,
And praises to his only Son,
Like praises to the Spirit dear,
While all the endless ages run.
Psalm 68
Psalm 685-7, 19-21
Courage, child, your sins are forgiven. (Mt 9:2)
The Son came to join his brothers and sisters in their slavery in the land of sin and death, that he might deliver us out of our darkness into the glorious light of our Father’s everlasting reign.
O sing to the Lord, make music to his name;
make a highway for him who rides on the clouds.
Rejoice in the Lord, exult at his presence.
Father of the orphan, defender of the widow,
such is God in his holy place.
God gives the lonely a home to live in;
he leads the prisoners forth into freedom:
but rebels must dwell in a parched land.
You have gone up on high; you have taken captives,
receiving men in tribute, O God,
even those who rebel, into your dwelling, O Lord.
May the Lord be blessed day after day.
He bears our burdens, God our savior.
This God of ours is a God who saves.
The Lord our God holds the keys of death.
Glory to the Father….
