* 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!
I remember the first time I saw “Wonder, Love, and Praise.” I opened it up and noticed that they had reused several of the old hymn tunes from the Hymnal 1982, but had married them to texts that read like public service announcements. I’d open to a page, and there would be the music for “Faith of Our Fathers,” but the text would be all about Failing To Live Into Climate Change or a lament for tsunami victims or whatever. These hymns are nearly impossible to sing, not because the tunes are bad (they’re not), but because the words come across like they were penned in committee. And not just any committee, but the Democratic National Committee.
Now, I do try to be a good sport, and I think occasionally about how Ein Feste Burg was originally a German drinking song, and how silly it probably sounded the first time someone played it in church (maybe it was the 16th century version of the Hip-Hop Mass; maybe the teenagers in the congregation rolled their eyes and thought, “Old people!”).
But this kind of feels the same way. Maybe it will catch on, who knows? It’s trendy in an orange-shag-carpet sort of way, but it’s not *too* egregious. But … I mean … Johnny Appleseed? I’m sure his mother thought he was great and everything, but … Johnny Appleseed?? [rolling eyes] “Old people!”
Shouldn’t saints be people who have “inherited that heavenly country” and dwell with the Triune God? There are Jews, Hindus, and (I think, though I’m not sure) atheists in this litany. I don’t think all of them (or any) qualify as saints.
Just speaking as a former Unitarian Universalist minister, James Reeb, a UU minister working for the American Friends Service Committee, was beaten to death in Selma, not shot.
And, wouldn’t Unitarians (by definition) be precluded from a list of those who reject the Triune God?
Looks exhaustingly wordy. And I think that reference to Andrew of Glasshampton should be William of Glasshampton.
Too cute! Did the 7th grade religion class at James Woods High School in Quohog, RI, come up with this?
(Me? I’m not a saint, but I’m “standing beside” those poor longsuffering folks at Christ Church, Denver, who had to endure this).
This exclusionary list doesn’t seem to have any [url=http://newsblaze.com/story/20071101085222tsop.nb/newsblaze/TOPSTORY/Top-Stories.htm]Hindus[/url] in it! Well, we here in the superinclusive Diocese of Nevada will straighten that right out…
Whoops, it does too have at least one Hindu in it! Sorry…
According to the note at [url=http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/62.html]Justus Anglican[/url], [blockquote]The litany of saints that follows is chanted annually at the Church of St. Stephen and the Incarnation in Washington, D.C., at the principal eucharist celebrating All Saints’ Day. It was composed around 1979, largely by William MacKaye, former religion editor of the Washington Post, though some of the images were taken from A Liberation Prayer Book of the Free Church in Berkeley, California, and has been adapted here and there in the subsequent years.
The litany is intended to be chanted in procession. The procession moves from station to station around the church during the singing of the verses of “For all the saints.” Each section of the litany is then chanted at a station. The final sections– to martyrs, to all saints, to Mary, and to Jesus–are chanted at stations in the center aisle as the procession makes its way toward the sanctuary. The litany concludes with the singing of the Gloria in excelsis. (The usual salutation and the Collect for Purity are omitted.)[/blockquote]
Well, bless Mr. MacKaye’s heart, isn’t this special? How could this possibly have been left out of the ’79 Book of Common Prayer?
#8,
Don’t worry, it will be available in the mix-and-match liturgy of the next “Book” of Common Prayer which will be produced in CD form to prevent the oppression of the privileging of certain texts over others. In fact, I’ve heard that you won’t be able to see the file tree on the CD’s… instead, you just search for what you’re looking for and it pops up. Wouldn’t want to suggest a hierarchy, even among liturgical texts.
#9: Didn’t you get the latest revisionist memo? It seems that hierarchy is now “A-OK” with the institutional leadership of the Episcopal Church after all! I know, I was surprized as well. Don’t believe me? Here’s a bit from the letter the Presiding Bishop sent to the Bishop of Pittsburgh:
“I call upon you to recede from this direction and to lead your diocese on a new course that recognizes the interdependent and hierarchical relationship between the national Church and its dioceses and parishes. That relationship is at the heart of our mission, as expressed in our polity.”
So, now hierarchy is at the heart of mission..at least when it suits the otherwise revisionist oligarchs.
Creator, redeemer, sanctifier here applied to Jesus alone. I like it. It’s and excellent example of why it is not an adequate substitute for the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I have a friend who is a liberal feminist (and a deacon), and even she argues that “creator, redeemer, sanctifier” is not an adequate substitute.
As for the saints. Most of them are good. But as I once commented to a member of St. Gregory’s, San Francisco (who have a diverse set of “saints” dancing on the wall of their sanctuary), Ghandi chose not to be a Christian. It dishonors his choice, by rather imperialistically appropriating him as a member of the Church. It is not unlike Mormons baptizing the dead. I think Ghandi (and a few others they have up there, like Malcolm X) would actually have been offended to be on your wall.