This week’s Humpday Devo is about All Saints’ Day, celebrated this Sunday, November 1.
Scripture
But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.
Poem
“Sonnet 18: Avenge, O Lord, Thy Slaughtered Saints” by John Milton
(courtesy The Poetry Foundation)
Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter’d saints, whose bones
Lie scatter’d on the Alpine mountains cold,
Ev’n them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipp’d stocks and stones;
Forget not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piemontese that roll’d
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubl’d to the hills, and they
To Heav’n. Their martyr’d blood and ashes sow
O’er all th’ Italian fields where still doth sway
The triple tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundred-fold, who having learnt thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.
Music
Prayer
Loving God, Lord of the living and the dead, thank you for those who have gone before us, paving the path by which we come to you. People are still searching for you. Strengthen us to keep leveling the road that leads others to you. In Christ’s name with the power of the Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen.
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