These are they . . .

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!

Thomas the doubter; Simon and Jude; 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; Brother Roger, founder of Taizé community; all FOUNDERS of communities: Stand Here Beside Us!

Louis, king of France; Margaret, queen of Scotland; Gandhi the mahatma, reproach to the churches; Dag Hammarskjöld, peacemaker; 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; Rosa Parks, who took her seat on the bus; all faithful SHEPHERDS of the Master's flock: Stand Here Beside Us!

Mary Magdalene, anointer of the Lord's feet; Luke the physician; Francis who kissed the leper; Florence Nightingale; Albert Schweitzer; Mother Teresa; all who brought to the sick and suffering the hands of HEALING: Stand Here Beside Us!

Pierluigi da Palestrina; John Merbecke; Johann Sebastian Bach; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Benjamin Britten; Duke Ellington; Ralph Vaughan Williams; Luciano Pavarotti; Moses Hogan; 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; George Herbert, Anglican priest and metaphysical poet; 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!

Amos of Tekoa, who held up the plumbline; John Wycliffe, who brought the Scripture to the common folk; Jan Hus and Menno Simons, generals in the Lamb's war; Martin Luther, who could do no other; George Fox, foe of steeple-houses; John XXIII, visionary pope; 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; Walter Wink, helped us understand the human Jesus; Verna Dozier, dreamed the dream of God; 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 Fiore, prophet of the new age; Johnny Appleseed, mad planter of Eden; Sojourner Truth, pilgrim of justice; Benedict Joseph Labre, priest and panhandler; Nicholas, bishop of Myra and secret gift-giver; all whose love for God was beyond CONTAINMENT: Stand Here Beside Us!

Stephen the deacon, the first MARTYR, stoned in Jerusalem; Justin, Ignatius and Polycarp, who refused the incense to Caesar; Perpetua and Felicity, torn by beasts in the arena at Carthage: Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, burned in Oxford: Maximilian Kolbe and Edith Stein, put to death at Auschwitz: Stand Here Beside Us!

James Reeb, Jonathan Daniels, Michael Schwerner, Medgar Evers, Viola Liuzzo, martyrs to CIVIL RIGHTS; Martin Luther King, shot in Memphis: Janani Luwum, shot in Kampala: 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!

Those of our own ancestors . . .

[insert your ancestors here]

. . . and those whose names are on our lips or in our hearts: