Eternal God of love

(one verse introduction)

Eternal God of love, behold your Church
walking once more the pilgrim way of Lent,
led by your cloud by day, by night your fire,
moved by your love and toward your presence bent:
far off yet here the goal of all desire.

So daily dying to the way of self,
so daily living to your way of love,
we walk the road, Christ Jesus, that you trod,
knowing ourselves baptized into your death:
so we are dead and live with you in God.

If dead in you, so in you we arise,
you the firstborn of all the faithful dead;
and as through stony ground the green shoots break,
glorious in springtime dress of leaf and flowers,
so in our Maker's glory shall we wake.

Music: Old 124th (16th C); harm. Charles Winfred Douglas (20thC)
Sequence: Dall Forsythe, The Church of St. John the Evangelist