The Rose

written by Reuben Kendall

Antiphonal call and response. Call in plain font, congregational response in italics.

Tone: delicate, simple, intimate, prayerful, penitent, contemplative.  

Beloved Jesus, who followed us 

into a world that you made to be so much kinder 

than it was to you; so much kinder 

than it was to those you love,  

How did you learn to be one of us without becoming cruel? 

For you are one of us now, and yet still kind,  

as you made all of us to be. 

The world has not been kind to us 

and we have learned to be cruel. We have grown thorns 

and torn each other into pieces.  

You grew no thorns, dear friend, 

even when we crowned you with them. 

Our hearts have hidden long in this unkind world, 

closed off behind overgrown thorns, afraid of being found,  

so at home in cruelty we cannot find our own way out.  

But since the garden at the beginning 

there has always been something in your voice 

that draws our hearts out of hiding. 

Speak, beloved Jesus; 

draw out our thorn-guarded hearts; 

by your own heart’s kindness 

coax roses from us. 

By your own heart’s kindness, 

most beloved Jesus, 

coax roses from us.