Hymns for Passiontide and Holy Week 

Click here to view a compline music word sheet.

During the current national lockdown due to Covid-19, some members of our choir have been recording hymns individually in the safety and comfort of their homes for our morning online services.  Their voices have been blended together to form a choir that we would normally hear in church. 

The choir have prepared the following hymns for the Passiontide and Holy Week journey for this year. 

There's a wideness in God's mercy

Ride on, ride on in majesty!

My song is love unknown

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy 

There's a wideness in God's mercy
like the wideness of the sea;
there's a kindness in his justice
which is more than liberty.
There is no place where earth's sorrows
are more felt than up in heaven;
there is no place where earth's failings
have such kindly judgement given.  

For the love of God is broader
than the measure of our mind,
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
But we make his love too narrow
by false limits of our own;
and we magnify his strictness
with a zeal he would not own.  

There is plentiful redemption
through the blood that has been shed;
there is joy for all the members
in the sorrows of the Head.
There is grace enough for thousands
of new worlds as great as this;
there is room for fresh creations
in that upper home of bliss.  

If our love were but more simple,
we should take him at his word;
and our lives would be all gladness
in the joy of Christ our Lord.  

Words: Frederick William Faber (1814-1863)
Tune: CORVEDALE Maurice Bevan (1921-2006)
 © Cathedral Music, King Charles Cottage, Chichester, PO18 9DT 
A&M 806  

Ride on, ride on in majesty 

Ride on, ride on in majesty!
Hark, all the tribes hosanna cry:
O Saviour meek, pursue thy road
with palms and scattered garments strowed.  

Ride on, ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die:
O Christ, thy triumphs now begin
o'er captive death and conquered sin.  

Ride on, ride on in majesty!
The wingèd squadrons of the sky
look down with sad and wondering eyes
to see the approaching sacrifice.  

Ride on, ride on in majesty!
The last and fiercest strife is nigh:
the Father on his sapphire throne
awaits his own anointed Son.  

Ride on, ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
bow thy meek head to mortal pain,
then take, O God, thy power, and reign.  

Words: Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868)
Tune: WINCHESTER NEW or CRASSELIUS  
Adapted from a chorale in Musicalisches Hand-Buch, 
Hamburg 1690  A&M 161 

My song is love unknown 

My song is love unknown, 
my Saviour's love to me, 
love to the loveless shown,  
that they might lovely be.  
O who am I,  
that for my sake  
my Lord should take  
frail flesh, and die?  

He came from his blest throne,  
salvation to bestow;  
but men made strange, and none  
the longed-for Christ would know.  
But O, my Friend,  
my Friend indeed,  
who at my need  
his life did spend!  

Sometimes they strew his way,  
and his sweet praises sing;  
resounding all the day  
hosannas to their King.  
Then 'Crucify!'  
is all their breath,  
and for his death  
they thirst and cry.  

They rise, and needs will have  
my dear Lord made away;  
a murderer they save,  
the Prince of Life they slay.  
Yet cheerful he  
to suffering goes,  
that he his foes  
from thence might free.  

Here might I stay and sing:  
no story so divine;  
never was love, dear King,  
never was grief like thine!  
This is my Friend,  
in whose sweet praise  
I all my days  
could gladly spend.  

Words: Samuel Crossman (1624 –1683)  
Tune: LOVE UNKNOWN John Ireland, Rock Mill, Washington (1879 - 1962)  
A&M 147 (with omitted verses)