"For All the Saints"

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give me grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living...
The Divine Hours



I would have loved to sing this hymn today in a church with a pipe organ. Not any church building, but an old cathedral. The kind with marble and intricately carved oak. And not just any organ, but the kind that can make your insides rumble.

Go here to read all of the verses and hear the music.

Many people will be familiar with this first verse:

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!


Here is verse #7 (of 11!), which I thought appropriate for election week:

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!

Ths photo is of a bell tower in England, near where Ralph Vaughn Williams (hymn's composer) lived.