* For all the saints, who from their labor rest,
* Who thee by faith before the world confessed,
* Thy Name, O Jesus, be for ever blessed.
* Alleluia, alleluia!
Holy ones present at our beginnings:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Abraham and Sarah,
Isaac and Rebecca,
Jacob and Rachel and Leah,
makers of the covenant, forebears of our race:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Elizabeth and Simeon,
Joseph, Monica and Helen,
exemplars in the love and care of children:
Stand Here Beside Us!
John the baptizer, map-maker of the Lord’s coming:
Stand Here Beside Us!
* Thou wast their rock, their fortress, and their might:
* Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well-fought fight;
* Thou, in the darkness drear, the one true Light.
* Alleluia, alleluia!
Holy ones who showed the good news to be the way of life:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Thomas the doubter;
Augustine of Canterbury;
Francis Xavier;
Samuel Joseph Schereschewsky;
all travelers who carried the Gospel to distant places:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Bernard and Dominic;
Catherine of Siena, the scourge of popes;
John and Charles Wesley, preachers in the streets;
all whose power of speaking gave life to the written word:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Benedict of Nursia,
Teresa of Avila;
Nicholas Ferrar;
Elizabeth Ann Seton;
Richard Meux Benson;
Charles de Foucauld;
all founders of communities:
Stand Here Beside Us!
* O may thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold,
* Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
* And win, with them, the victor’s crown of gold.
* Alleluia, alleluia!
Holy ones who gave their lives to the care of others:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Louis, king of France;
Margaret, queen of Scotland;
Gandhi the mahatma, reproach to the churches;
Dag Hammarskjold the bureaucrat;
all who made governance an act of faith:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Peter of the keys, denier of the Lord;
Ambrose of Milan, who answered the Church’s summons;
Hilda, abbess at Whitby;
Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, protector of the Jews;
Jean-Baptiste Vianney, cure d’ Ars,
Patient hearer of catalogues of sins;
All faithful shepherds of the Master’s flock:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Mary Magdalen, anointer of the Lord’s feet;
Luke the physician;
Francis who kissed the leper;
Florence Nightingale;
Albert Schweitzer;
all who brought to the sick and suffering the hands of healing:
Stand Here Beside Us!
* O blest communion, fellowship divine!
* We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
* Yet all are one in thee, for all are thine.
* Alleluia, alleluia!
Holy ones who made the proclaiming of God’s love a work of art:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Pierluigi da Palestrina;
John Merbecke;
Johann Sebastian Bach;
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart;
Benjamin Britten;
Duke Ellington;
all who sang the Creator’s praises in the language of the soul:
Stand Here Beside Us!
David and the Psalmists;
Caedmon;
John Milton, sketcher of Paradise;
William Blake, builder of Jerusalem;
John Mason Neale, preserver of the past;
all poets of the celestial vision:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Zaccheus the tree-climber;
Brother Lawrence;
Therese of Lisieux, the little flower;
Andrew of Glasshampton;
all cultivators of holy simplicity:
Stand Here Beside Us!
* And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
* Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
* And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong.
* Alleluia, alleluia!
Holy ones haunted by the justice and mercy of God:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Amos of Tekoa, who held up the plumbline;
John Wycliffe, who brought the Scripture to the common folk;
John Hus and Menno Simons, generals in the Lamb’s war;
Martin Luther, who could do no other;
George Fox, foe of steeple-houses;
all who kept the Church ever-reforming:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Paul the apostle, transfixed by noonday light;
Augustine of Hippo, God’s city planner;
Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin, architects of the divine;
Charles Williams, teacher of coinherence;
Karl Barth, knower of the unknowable;
all who saw God at work and wrote down what they saw:
Stand Here Beside Us!
John, the seer of Patmos;
Anthony of the desert;
Julian, the anchoress of Norwich;
Hildegarde, the sybil of the Rhine;
Meister Eckardt;
Bernadette of Lourdes;
all who were called to see the Master’s face:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Joachim of Fiora, prophet of the new age;
Johnny Appleseed, mad planter of Eden;
Sojourner Truth, pilgrim of justice;
Benedict Joseph Labre, priest and panhandler;
all whose love for God was beyond containment:
Stand Here Beside Us!
* The golden evening brightens in the west;
* Soon, soon to faithful warriors cometh rest;
* Sweet is the calm of paradise the blest.
* Alleluia, alleluia!
Holy ones who died in witness to the Christ:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Stephen the deacon, the first martyr, stoned in Jerusalem:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Justin, Ignatius and Polycarp, who refused the incense to Caesar:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Perpetua and Felicity, torn by beasts in the arena at Carthage:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley,
Burned in Oxford:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Maximilian Kolbe and Edith Stein, put to death at Auschwitz:
Stand Here Beside Us!
James Reeb, Jonathan Daniels, Michael Schwerner,
Medgar Evers, Viola Liuzzo, shot in the South:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Martin Luther King, shot in Memphis:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Janani Luwum, shot in Kampala:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Oscar Romero, shot in San Salvador:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Martyrs of Rome, of Lyons, of Japan, of Eastern Equatorial
Africa, of Uganda, of Melanesia,
martyrs of everywhere:
STAND HERE BESIDE US!
* But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
* The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
* The King of Glory passes on his way.
* Alleluia, alleluia!
Holy ones of every time and place:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Glorious company of heaven:
Stand Here Beside Us!
All climbers of the ladder of Paradise:
Stand Here Beside Us!
All runners of the celestial race:
Stand Here Beside Us!
[The people may call out saints’ names]
Great cloud of witnesses:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Mary most holy, chief of the saints:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Mary most holy, yes-sayer to God:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Mary most holy, unmarried mother:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Mary most holy, gate of heaven and ark of the covenant:
Stand Here Beside Us!
* From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
* Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
* Singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost:
* Alleluia, alleluia!
Jesus our liberator, creator of all:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Jesus our liberator, redeemer of all:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Jesus our liberator, sanctifier of all:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Jesus our liberator, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and
the end:
Stand Here Beside Us!