For All Your Saints, O Lord

For all your saints, O Lord,
Who strove in you to live,
Who followed you, obeyed adored,
Our grateful hymn receive.

They all in life and death,
With you, their Lord, in view,
Learned from your Holy Spirit’s breath
To suffer and to do.

For this your name we bless
And humbly pray anew
That we like them in holiness
May live and die in you.

By Richard Mant
text in the public domain
from http://lutheran-hymnal.com/lyrics/lw195.htm

• This hymn is addressed to God, but what is the subject of the hymn?
• We tend to think of saints as people who have officially been declared to have lived by a higher standard than other Christians. How did the saint in this hymn achieve sainthood?
• To what does the hymnwriter refer in the phrase “Holy Spirit’s breath?”
• The hymn says that saints learn to suffer. Nobody is thrown to lions in the US. How do saints suffer today in this country?
• What is the objective of the hymn? How will you be different if you take this hymn seriously?