Justorum animae is one of three motets by Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) published in 1905 (though they were probably written more than a decade earlier). It is a setting of a text from the deuterocanonical book of Wisdom:
“Justorum animae in manu Dei sunt, et non tanget illos tormentum mortis. Visi sunt oculis insipientium mori, illi autem sunt in pace.”
“The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and the torment of death shall not touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die; but they are in peace.”
The text has long been used as the Offertory proper for the Feast of All Saints.
Here is a performance of Stanford’s motet
by the Choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge.