While I am looking at songs by James Maher msc, this Marian hymn is one of his best known songs. I have struggled to find hymns about Mary that weren’t overly sentimental, so this is a good option for me, tying Mary to the earth and her humanity.
The sheet music is available at Willow but an assembly version is in this MSC hymn book.
It’s great there are some many clips of this song, but sad that one is from his own thanksgiving mass.
I used one of BIAB’s other tricks to work out the chords for my backing:
In you our flesh he had to come
You grounded him upon our earth
Your feet that walked, your womb that held
Your pain that brought this love to birth.
The Sacred Heart of him you held
can grieve and grow within the space,
of patient love and listening;
a mother’s choice a mystic’s grace.In your delight, in your despair,
The smallest choices of each day;
The cost to you, your hope-filled yes,
Your courage lived shows us the way.
Our Lady of the Sacred Heart,
Eternal sign of God surprise,
In you we know the poor as blessed,
This world transformed before our eyes.O Woman of the Sacred Heart,
© 2002 James Maher msc, administered by Willow Publishing
You heard the words of Gabriel.
Pray we may hear the call of God
and come to meet Emmanuel
His truth is witnessed in your face,
that he became and was and is
The Sacred Heart, the resting place;
Our hearts forever held in his.