Sunday, October 26, 2014

A litany of all the Saints

A Litany of All the Saints
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!
John and Charles Wesley, preachers in the streets;

all whose power of speaking gave life to the written word:
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!
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!
Holy ones who made the proclaiming of God's love a work of art:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Johann Sebastian Bach; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart;
all who sang the Creator's praises in the language of the soul:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Holy ones haunted by the justice and mercy of God:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Joachim of Fiora, prophet of the new age;
Johnny Appleseed, mad planter of Eden;
Sojourner Truth, pilgrim of justice;
all whose love for God was beyond containment:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Martin Luther King, shot in Memphis:Oscar,  Romero, shot in San Salvador: Janani Luwum, shot in Kampala:
Holy ones of every time and place:
Stand Here Beside Us!
From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast,
Jesus our liberator, creator of all:
Stand Here Beside Us!
Jesus our liberator, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end: wisdom, for creativity, for energy and for liberation to new life.
(Prayers are shared or prayed silently)
for all this and for ourselves,
We pray in faith, O God. AMEN

(Source unknown)


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