Dear People of St. James’,
This Sunday, November 5, we will celebrate the glorious Feast of All Saints together. I can’t wait! All Saints’ Day is one of my favorite feast days, and it is so richly embodied in our St. James’ community. This Sunday, we will welcome Addy and Lyra into that great communion through baptism. This Sunday, we will honor the rich heritage of all of those educators who founded St. James’ and kept it engaged in the work of ministry with young people over the years as we celebrate an Open House at the St. James’ Early Head Start Center on our campus.
This Sunday at the 5 pm, we will chant the Litany of All Saints, composed by William MacKaye and edited for our St. James’ community. William MacKaye was best known as a journalist and a maker of fiendishly-clever crossword puzzles for the Washington Post. However, I will remember him as a liturgist of the renewal movement of the mid-twentieth century, and one who pushed his church, St. Stephen and the Incarnation in DC, to find more expansive language for God and more loving language for those of different faiths. His litany, adapted for our own context, was radical in its time for lifting up the examples of many more women and figures who shaped the Civil Rights Movement. He unabashedly includes people whose lives were manifestly imperfect, but whose life exemplified the hard work of walking in the way of Christ. This past August, William MacKaye joined that great procession of all the saints, and we will ask him to Stand here beside us! in our chanting of the litany.
Below is the litany for those who can’t join us at 5 pm. The names are chanted between verses of Hymn 287.
Rev. Eileen
A Litany for All Saints
For all the saints, who from their labor rest,
Who thee by faith before the world confessed,
thy Name, O Jesus, be forever 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, seekers of God’s promise: Stand Here Beside Us!
John the baptizer, map-maker of the Lord’s coming: Stand Here Beside Us!
Holy ones who showed the good news to be the way of life: Stand Here Beside Us!
Thomas the doubter, Augustine of Canterbury, Samuel Joseph Schereschewsky, all travelers who carried the Gospel to distant places: Stand Here Beside Us!
Absalom Jones, 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, Harriet Monsell, Thomas Cain, John D. Epps, Graham Pulkingham; all founders of communities: 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 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; Martin Luther, who could do no other; Gustavo Gutierrez; 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; Catherine LaCugna; 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!
Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, pilgrims of justice; Pauli Murray; Thurgood Marshall; Cesar Chavez; all whose love for God was beyond containment: 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!
Peter of the keys, denier of the Lord; Ambrose of Milan, who answered the Church’s summons; Hilda, abbess at Whitby; Robert, bishop of Lincoln, protector of the Jews;
All faithful shepherds of the Lord’s flock: Stand Here Beside Us!
Mary Magdalene, anointer of the Lord; Luke the physician; Damien of Moloka’i; Florence Nightingale; 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!
James Weldon Johnson; John Merbecke; Johann Sebastian Bach; Benjamin Britten; Thomas Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Betty Pulkingham; all who sang the Creator’s praises in the language of the soul: 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 died in witness to the Christ: Stand Here Beside Us!
James, son of thunder, patron of this church, murdered by empire: 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!
James Reeb, Jonathan Daniels, Medgar Evers, Viola Liuzzo, shot in the South: Stand Here Beside Us!
Martin Luther King Jr., 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!
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!
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!
