Good Friday Reproaches
A setting of the Good Friday Reproaches for SATB choir and cantor(s). Traditionally done during the Good Friday service, here is a new setting with new language from Common Worship (UK). Easily accomplished by a good choir, since everything repeats a number of times. Heart rending and especially effective.
From Common Worship:
Whether it is desired to use the traditional form, because (for example) the text is being sung to a well-known setting like those of Victoria or Sanders, or this version, it is important to remember that Jesus’ words are to be understood as applying to the present Church, rather than to his own contemporaries. Here, 'Israel’ and ‘my people’ stand for the Church, and we are to hear the Reproaches as directed to our own hardness of heart and failure of discipleship.
My people, what wrong have I done to you?
What good have I not done for you?
Listen to me.
I am your Creator, Lord of the universe;
I have entrusted this world to you,
but you have created the means to destroy it.
I made you in my image,
but you have degraded body and spirit
and marred the image of your God.
You have deserted me and turned your backs on me.
I filled the earth with all that you need,
so that you might serve and care for one another,
as I have cared for you;
but you have cared only to serve your own wealth and power.
Holy God,
holy and strong,
holy and immortal,
have mercy upon us.
I made my children of one blood
to live in families rejoicing in one another;
but you have embittered the races
and divided the nations.
I commanded you to love your neighbor as yourself,
to love and forgive even your enemies;
but you have made vengeance your rule
and hate your guide.
In the fullness of time I sent you my Son,
that in him you might know me,
and through him find life and peace;
but you put him to death on the cross.
Holy God,
holy and strong,
holy and immortal,
have mercy upon us.
Through the living Christ, I called you into my Church
to be my servants to the world,
but you have grasped at privilege
and forgotten my will.
I have given you a heavenly gift
and a share in the Holy Spirit;
I have given you the spiritual energies
of the age to come;
but you have turned away
and crucified the Son of God afresh.
I have consecrated you in the truth;
I have made you to be one
in the unity of the Father and the Son,
by the power of the Spirit;
but you have divided my Church
and shrouded my truth.
Holy God,
holy and strong,
holy and immortal,
have mercy upon us.
Turn again, my people, listen to me.
Let your bearing to one another
arise out of your life in Christ Jesus.
He humbled himself
and in obedience accepted the death of the cross.
But I have bestowed on him
the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus,
every knee should bow
and every tongue confess,
Jesus Christ is Lord.
Turn again, my people, listen to me.