Now we hear creation groaning
1 Now we hear creation groaning
like a prisoner held in chains,
yearning for unbridled freedom,
healing from its present pains:
for the cosmos is in labour,
bearing worlds as yet unknown,
incomplete without the people
God has chosen as his own.
2 But the saints are also groaning
with this aching hope we bear;
through involvement in life's turmoil,
Jesus' wounds are ours to share:
in the church, the world's frustrations
can be focused, felt and healed,
as a better, new creation
is foreshadowed and revealed.
3 So we find, in all this anguish,
God's intentions are expressed,
for the groans the Spirit utters
are the deepest and the best:
and those painful, strong emotions
human words can never tell -
God the Spirit, who evokes them,
now interprets them as well.
4 Since this fallen, splendid cosmos
is the womb to greater things,
and since we, in all our frailty,
serve the broken King of kings,
teach us, God, to hear your Spirit
whose maternal, wordless call
is the heart of our vocation
and the truest prayer of all.
Martin E. Leckebusch (b.1962)
© Martin E. Leckebusch, admin. The Jubilate Group
8 7 8 7 D
Suggested tune: DIM OND IESU