Jo M Thomas
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Passage 23 - A Chapel Hymn

Passage 23 - A Chapel Hymn

Jan 17, 2022

There are two churches in Under Smoke City but they go untended. Vicars and rectors wait until hushed Sunday, but not the lonely chaplain in the cathedral to industry, hoping to be the voice of Light in a soot-darkened world. Otherwise empty, the little stone chapel holds his sighs and sermons and intent silence; not since Muna's morning prayer has anyone been. Robert Purefoy–

ROBERT PUREFOY : For your Love, Lord. For you I will endure all–

waits only for the evening and solitude in his own home.

ROBERT PUREFOY : By what golden act,

Oh Lord, my Lord,

did I deserve your love

and guiding hand?

What could I do

that is worth an ounce

your mercy and kindness?

I am not special.

You forgive sinners,

whatever sin,

and mine are no more

or less than others.

What divine wisdom

Oh Lord made you

Choose my broken old heart

To spread the sweet message

Of your loving Grace?

As true as I stand here

Oh Lord of Love

Oh Master of the World

Oh God of Light

The source of Peace

Amid the noise and haste,

You give no-one more

Than they can bear

When they pray for your Grace.

What service can I

A frail human heart

A temporary part

In your overall design

Oh Lord and master

My God and my Saviour

What service can I offer

When you are so much

More than I am?

I'll do what I can.

I'll sit with passing strangers

And listen when

They unload their troubles.

Bring Light, bring Love,

Bring them Peace for a span.

I pray Lord,

You bolster my failing

Heart and weeping faith.

Let them all come.

Remember them.

They are forgetting.

The Saviour who gave his life

Has gone from their minds.

Remember them.

They have forgotten you.

But when they go into the darkness you will still be with them all.

Let me show them how your Light may guide them.

MUNA LUT : Oh,

says Muna Lut as she passes by the closed doors of the station chapel,

he must be so lonely.

She whispers her own prayer,

MUNA LUT : Give him a life,

and hurries on as her words float up into the soaring golden roof-ribs.

OLD BENJAMIN : There is no greater life than this,

says Old Ben. He watches the prayers wink and shine.

OLD BENJAMIN : This is the soul of our city,

the man says; and he winks back at the words. He watches them glowing still through the heavy processional smoke of his cathedral's censers.

Let the mighty engines carry the message around the world,

he adds to the constellation.

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