Forty days and forty nights / thou wast fasting in the wild

Today, as I've done for years, I took advantage of my workplace being near the church and a flexible work schedule in order to attend the 10:00 AM Ash Wednesday service (one of several services conducted today). I'm not sure why, but the sanctuary seemed so bare this year. Maybe, in part, it was from looking up at and seeing the hymnboard reading rather starkly just "Ash Wednesday," with no hymns listed beneath.

But Fr. Daniel announced that we would begin Holy Communion singing, a capella, the most appropriate Hymn 55:

Forty days and forty nights
thou wast fasting in the wild;
forty days and forty nights
tempted, and yet undefiled.

A little bit austere, it seemed, and so fitting.

(But I wonder: was this done because at the end of the Pancake Supper last night two of our members, Nancy and Kathy, sung the first verse so well together from memory? Neither of them were in attendance at this service...)