'Common Ground' hymnbook, no.3. Composer: James MacMillan, from his Galloway Mass (1997). I could not find a YouTube performance of this piece to link to, but the text is not copyrighted.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, grant us peace.
This is a modern setting of an ancient Latin text, part of the Catholic Mass (or Communion service in some other traditions). In the standard pattern of liturgy, there will already have been an opportunity for the congregation to confess their sins, in silence and/or by reciting a set form of confession together. We have also ‘shared the Peace’ with each other. So why is there another call on Jesus (here given his title Lamb of God) to have mercy on us, remove our sin and give us peace, later in the service?
Maybe it is because, despite our best intentions, we are continually sinning: not perhaps in the popular sense of committing immoral acts, but in the wider sense of turning away from God to serve our own interests. That might be as venial as thinking about what to cook for dinner when we should be praying in silence, or daydreaming rather than listening to the sermon. All the busyness and activity of our lives tends to distract us from what really matters most: living in the moment, living in God’s presence, serving God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.
This moment comes just before actually receiving communion. All distractions must be put aside as we prepare to receive him. Whatever your theology of the Eucharist, whether you believe in a literal turning of bread and wine into flesh and blood or see it more symbolically, this is the holiest of moments. Together as one body, the believers come forward to share the consecrated bread and wine. To recognise ourselves as inseparably part of Christ’s body, inseparable too from each other (despite those differences in belief and practice from one church to another).
So we ask the Lamb, the one who was sacrificed for us, not only to forgive us, but to give us his Peace: his ‘Shalom’, wholeness of mind and body. As we walk away from the altar, we remind ourselves that we are indeed a ‘new creation’, freed from whatever lies behind us, to go back into the world as renewed and peaceful people. Amen.
I like this phrase “living in the moment, living in God’s presence, serving God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength”
Living in the moment, in the here and now is what is known as Grounding. And you are singing through Common Ground.