Ash Wednesday Service 2021

Our Vestry Secretary, Richard Inglis, reads the Collect, Epistle and Gospel for Ash Wednesday. This is followed on the organ by the hymn tune for Forty Days and Forty Nights. The words are below; you are invited to sing along.

1 Forty days and forty nights
thou wast fasting in the wild;
Forty days and forty nights
Tempted, and yet undefiled  

2 Shall not we thy sorrows share
And from worldly joys abstain,
Fasting with unceasing prayer,
glad with thee to suffer pain?

3 And if satan, vexing sore
Flesh or spirit  should assail,
thou, his vanquisher before
Grant we may not faint nor fail!

4 So shall we have peace divine;
Holier gladness ours shall be.
‘Round us, too, shall angels shine,
Such as ministered to thee

5 Keep, O keep us, Saviour dear,
Ever constant by thy side,
That with thee we may appear
At the eternal Eastertide.