If you want a reflection on the readings for the First Sunday of Lent why not take a look at Cardinal Newman's wonderful hymn, Praise to the Holiest? Read the readings, read the hymn - slowly. Let your heart and mind go from one to the other. Can you see the connections especially in the second and third verses of the hymn? Can you see how both tell the same wonderful story of how God makes a triumph from the disaster of our disobedience?
Praise to the Holiest in the height,
And in the depth be praise;
In all His words most wonderful,
Most sure in all His ways.
O loving wisdom of our God!
When all was sin and shame,
A second Adam to the fight
And to the rescue came.
O wisest love! that flesh and blood,
Which did in Adam fail,
Should strive afresh against the foe,
Should strive and should prevail.
And that a higher gift than grace
Should flesh and blood refine,
God’s Presence and His very Self,
And Essence all divine.
O generous love! that He, who smote,
In Man for man the foe,
The double agony in Man
For man should undergo.
And in the garden secretly,
And on the Cross on high,
Should teach His brethren, and inspire
To suffer and to die.
Praise to the Holiest in the height,
And in the depth be praise;
In all His words most wonderful,
Most sure in all His ways.
You might even like to finish by singing along....
Welcome to Ashby-de-la-Zouch and Measham Catholic Parishes
