This text by the Revd Ally Barrett was written shortly after the Orlando shooting in 2016, and then drawn to my attention again in 2017 after the Manchester attack. And since then there have been more terrorist attacks.
I’ve called it “Finsbury Park” because the attack on the mosque there was in the news while I was writing this, and because there wasn’t already a hymn tune of that name in the database at hymnary.org.
Here is a PDF of the score with the words in verses at the bottom, and a PDF of the score with the text underlaid beneath the music.
And here are the usual robotic clarionets, so you can hear it too:
1. O God of all salvation
In every darkest hour,
Look down at your creation
With pity and with power.
In all the pain we’re seeing,
For stranger as for friend,
We’ll cling with all our being
To love that cannot end.
2. O God, your loving passion
Is deeper than our pain,
Look down, and in compassion
Bring us to life again.
When we are found despairing,
When all seems lost to sin,
We’ll hear your voice declaring
That love alone will win.
3. O God, when hate grows stronger,
With fear to pave its way,
The cry, ‘Lord, how much longer?’
With broken hearts we pray.
In all that is dismaying
In humankind’s freewill,
We’ll join our voices, praying
That love will triumph still.
4. O God, whose love will never
Be silenced, stalled or stilled,
Set us to work wherever
There’re bridges to rebuild.
We’ll take our life’s vocation
To make, like heav’n above,
In this and every nation
A kingdom built on love.
As usual, you can also download the music from the Choral Public Domain Library, and the hymn tune is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license. Ally Barrett’s words are used with permission, under a license similar to Creative Commmons Attribution Non-Commercial; see her website for more details.
This music was brought to you by my lovely kind supporters at Patreon. If you’d like more, please consider whether you can join them in supporting me.