Loving God, you hear your peoples’ cry.

We turn to you for understanding, comfort, and help.

We praise and thank you for your wisdom, your strength, and your unfailing love,

made ours through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, for the thirsty,
you give living water;

for the hungry,
the bread of life;

for the fearful,
the shelter of your wings.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,
we give thanks for your mercy. Amen.

Possibly D.T. Niles learned this psalm setting in his ecumenical work, though he might also have learned it in his home country of Sri Lanka. The melody is identified as “Indien/Sri Lanka” in Thuma Mina, the International Ecumenical Hymnbook published in 1995 in Basel to encourage ecumenical singing with partner churches; the text there is published in German and English. The text provided here is in Tamil and English—Tamil is spoken predominately in South India and Northeast Sri Lanka. The Punjabi language is spoken by more than a hundred million people in Pakistan and India, and is the only tonal language among Indo-Aryan languages. This melody is still known and sung by Punjabi Christians, who most often sing it to another psalm. Geoff Weaver published his arrangement of this text in World Praise, published in Great Britain also in 1995; the text there was adapted from the original and is presented only in English except for the word “Saranam.” 

Daniel Thambyrajah Niles (b. Telipallai, Ceylon, 1908; d. Vellore Christian Medical College, India, 1970) began studies in law at Ceylon Christian University, but changed his course of study to the ministry, due in part to a devout Hindu warden at the University who greatly influenced him. Niles was ordained in the United Methodist Church in 1932. After serving in Ceylon, he became the president of the East Asia Christian Conference (EACC), and later the evangelism secretary for the World Council of Churches in Geneva.