A Concord Pastor Comments: Pause for Prayer: HOLY THURSDAY

Our Humble God by Howard Banks

A song, a prayer for Holy Thursday

On Holy Thursday night at the Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper, we hear in the gospel how Jesus washed the feet of his friends and commanded them to do likewise: the Lord's command at his last supper when he washed his friends' feet:

If I, therefore, the master and teacher,
have washed your feet,
you ought to wash one another’s feet.
I have given you a model to follow,
so that as I have done for you,
you should also do.

In line with this loving gesture is a hymn sung on Holy Thursday: Where Charity and Love Prevail. The hymn's lyrics follow this video and then there are three more musical settings.

Today's Pause for Prayer offers three versions of this hymn, each beautiful and good food for prayer in its own way...

Where charity and love prevail,
there God is ever found;
Brought here together by Christ’s love,
by love are we thus bound.

With grateful joy and holy fear
His charity we learn;
Let us with heart and mind and soul
now love him in return.

Forgive we now each other’s faults
as we our faults confess;
And let us love each other well
in Christian holiness.

Let strife among us be unknown,
let all contention cease;
Be his the glory that we seek,
be ours his holy peace.

Let us recall that in our midst
dwells God’s begotten Son;
As members of his body joined,
we are in Christ made one.

No race or creed can love exclude,
if honored be God’s name;
Our family embraces all
whose Father is the same.

And here, a beautiful piano variation on this melody, a choral setting with the composer at the keyboard and a mantra from the Taize community in France.

A remarkable choral setting with the composer at the keyboard:

And another musical setting, in Latin, from Taize:

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est
(Where there are charity and love, there is God)