March 9/Third Tuesday of Lent Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths.Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation. ~ Ps 25.4-5 Not long ago, I observed one of those birthdays considered “significant.” Unable to celebrate in suitable fashion, instead I made a list of the people…
Category: Songs for Lent
Song 17: Desideratum
March 8/Third Monday of Lent As the hind longs for the running waters, so my soul longs for you, O God.Athirst is my soul for God, the living God. When shall I go and behold the face of God? ~ Ps 42.2-3 After long months of Zoom Mass, our parish church doors cracked open over the summer, with no choir,…
Song 16: Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
March 6/Second Saturday of Lent For as the heavens are high above the earth, so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he put our transgressions from us. ~ Ps 103.11-12 We live in an unforgiving time. One verbal misstep can derail a career; a long-ago article or…
Song 15: Dark Inscrutable Workmanship
March 5/Second Friday of Lent When the LORD called down a famine on the land and ruined the crop that sustained them, He sent a man before them, Joseph, sold as a slave. ~ Ps 105.16-17 Between the specter of new COVID-19 variants and the massive winter storm of mid-February that left so many Americans in abject misery and disrupted…
Song 14: Water, Water, Everywhere
March 4/Second Thursday of Lent He is like a tree planted near running water, That yields its fruit in due season, and whose leaves never fade. ~ Ps 1.3 My husband has remarked more than once that the surest way to kill a plant is to put it under my care. He has a point. I have lost count of the…
Song 13: Words to Live By
March 3/Second Wednesday of Lent Into your hands I commend my spirit; you will redeem me, O LORD, O faithful God. ~ Ps 31.6 “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” Is there a more compelling and powerful expression of trust in the entire Bible? Jesus uttered it from the cross at the moment of his death, and that cry has…
Song 12: Keeping Up Appearances
March 2/Second Tuesday of Lent “Why do you recite my statutes, and profess my covenant with your mouth, Though you hate discipline and cast my words behind you?To him that goes the right way I will show the salvation of God.” ~ Ps 50.16-17, 23 The other day during a phone conversation, a friend heard me commenting about someone in…
Song 11: Low Blows
March 1/Second Monday of Lent Let your compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low. Let the groaning of the prisoners come before you; with your great power preserve those doomed to die. ~ Ps 79.8, 11 The other day the local news featured a story about a man in a nearby town who sank into the mud…
Song 10: All In
February 27/First Saturday of Lent Happy are those who keep his decrees, who seek him with their whole heart. ~ Ps 119.2 How many of us can honestly say that we seek God with our whole hearts? Do we make a sincere effort to set time aside each day for prayer and reflection? Do we follow our parish services online…
Song 9: Rough Waters
February 26/First Friday of Lent Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD; LORD, hear my voice!. ~ Ps 130.1-2 The only time I have truly felt myself to be in peril on the sea was years ago when, on a solo outing in the family Sunfish off the beach, I capsized. As the sail filled with water…