lent – reverendally.org

Journey to resurrection

church resources, easter, holy week, hymns, lent, music, worship

A new collection of hymns/songs is out today from Jubilate – I’ve contributed a set of words, but posting here the link to the whole collection, which includes songs from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. From the Jubilate website you can download the words, and also purchase lyric videos of individual songs for use in church, a songbook for if you have live musicians, reflective commentaries on the words, and even a CD of the whole album.

The whole collection: Journey to Resurrection

My song, with music by the wonderful Joel Payne: Drop, slow tears

As with all my Jubilate hymns, you’ll need to put this one on your CCLI return:

1 Drop, slow tears of anguish, sing of love unknown;
watch as in the garden Jesus weeps alone,
seeking strength to finish what he has begun:
“Through this cup of suffering let your will be done.”

2 Peter, at the fireside, weep your bitter tears;
give up to your Saviour all your shame and fears.
He will still forgive you, Christ who freely gave;
let him take your failures with him to the grave.

3 Shed your tears of sorrow: Christ hangs on the cross;
Mary, standing by him, weeps her love and loss.
See the blood and water, balm distilled from pain:
by his wounds he heals us, bringing life again.

4 Wipe our eyes, O Saviour, in the darkest night;
as we long to see you in the dawning light.
When the world feels broken, trapped behind a stone,
raise us up, and teach us songs of love made known.

words © Ally Barrett / Jubilate
music © Joel Payne / Jubilate
admin. Jubilate Hymns Ltd
copyrightmanager@jubilatehymns.co.uk

Women of Holy Week

bible, church resources, easter, holy week, lent, pictures, worship

Last year I worked on a project with the fabulous Paula Gooder to illustrate her nine short stories entitled ‘Women of Holy Week’. The resulting book was hugley popular last Lent, and I suspect it will be again this year, so it’s absolutely not too late to get hold of copies and use them in your church or in your personal devotions, or as a gift for friends. It’s wonderfully readable, and includes ideas for reflection as well as historical / scriptural details drawn from Paula’s scholarly wisdom that really enrich the narrative.

Buy the book here (links to Church House Publishing)

If you would like to use the images alongside the book in worship or Lent groups etc, you can download them from my book illustrations page. There are nine individual paintings, and one large composite image, to be ‘read’ in a spiral direction starting at the top left hand corner, following the order that the stories appear in Paula’s book. Because the stories are all interwoven with each other, so are the paintings – you can enjoy them separately or together.

NB if you don’t have the means to do high quality colour printing you may find projecting the images more satisfying.

Women of Holy Week

art, church resources, easter, holy week, lent, pictures, worship

As we prepare to enter Holy Week, I wanted to post something about the wonderful collection of stories by Paula Gooder, which explore the events of Holy Week and Easter through the eyes of nine of the women. It was my absolute joy and privilege to provide the artwork for the book.
You can buy the book directly from Church House Publishing (and from other online and high street bookshops) and you can also download the pictures (for a limited time only) so you can use them in your own personal reflections or in Church over Holy Week and beyond.

Dark is the night

church resources, easter, holy week, hymns, lent, music, poems, worship

A hymn for Passiontide to Easter Eve 2020, as a contribution to ‘words for difficult times’.
(Tune: Eventide, aka Abide with me)

Here is a video of the hymn, with me singing and my son recording and producing it:

And the text for those using screen readers:

Dark is the night, the passing hours are long,
Lone voices whisper sorrow’s silent song,
Each faltering prayer will fear it’s made in vain,
When will we sing the world to life again?

Dark is the night; not all are blessed with sleep.
Some wake and work, and some must watch and weep:
Angels disguised, they tend a world in pain,
Off’ring the hope that there’ll be life again.

Dark is the night, the silent hours are slow,
Heav’n’s tears anoint the suffering earth below,
Blessing with dew the secret springing grain,
Pledge that the world will soon know life again.

Passiontide and Holy Week in pictures

art, clipart, easter, holy communion, holy week, lent, Other cool stuff, pictures, worship

This post is all pictures. I’ve put all of my pictures that possibly pertain to Passiontide and Holy Week here in one place so that if you’re looking for images to use in reflective material for yourself or for your dispersed congregation you can just help yourself. Sorry the digital quality isn’t great for all of them and some are a bit blurry.