Holy Thursday Compline

[Howard Baker]

If any of you have a service of Compline on Holy Thursday and are short of pieces to sing, here are two sets of hymn words I produced a year or two ago:

Opening hymn:

1. From your Last Supper, Lord, we come,
from sharing bread and wine –
your very Body and your Blood:
Passover’s victory sign.

2. At that great Feast the Master served,
the greatest was the least:
by this example may our care
for others be increased.

3. An evening vigil, Lord, we keep;
we scatter not, but stay.
And with you on Mount Olivet,
‘God’s will be done,’ we pray.

4. For it was God’s mysterious will
to offer you, his Son,
to desolation and to death
that for us life be won.

(which we sing to the tune 'St Bernard')

and a metrical Nunc Dimittis (which we sing to 'Finlandia'):

1. “At last now, Master, you have let your servant
depart in peace, according to your word;
for with my eyes salvation I have witnessed,
which for all peoples, Lord, you have prepared:
a light of revelation to all nations
and for the glory of your Israel.”

2. Glory to God, the Father and Creator,
to Christ, his Son, a Light for all the world,
and to the sanctifying Breath, the Spirit:
all praise and honour to the Three-in-One:
glory and honour, as in the beginning,
may there be now, and for eternity.

I make no claims for their literary quality; if you're desperate, feel free to use them.