Wednesday, March 01, 2006

A Song About Grace for This Ash Wednesday

Here are the words to another song, apart from those mentioned here that get at what grace is like:
Wide open are Your hands
To pay with more than gold
The awful debt of guilt and sin,
Forever and of old.
Ah, let me grasp those hands,
That we may never part,
And let the power of their blood
Sustain my fainting heart.

Wide open are Your arms,
A fallen world to embrace,
To win to love and endless rest
Our wayward human race.
Lord, I am sad and poor,
But boundless is Your grace;
Give me the soul-transforming joy
For which I seek Your face.

Draw all my mind and heart
Up to Your throne on high,
And let Your sacred cross exalt
My spirit to the sky.
To these, Your mighty hands,
My spirit I resign.
In life, I live alone to You;
In death, am Yours alone.
[The text was written by Bernard of Clairvaux, who lived from 1091 to 1153. It was translated into English by Charles Porterfield Krauth, who lived from 1823 to 1883. The melody, Leominster, was composed by George W. Martin, 1828 to 1881.]

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