Mtr Taylor Devine

Dear friend,

Today we celebrate All Souls, the commemoration of all the faithful departed. Especially today, we pray for our loved ones, members of our Church community who have gone before us, those we love and see know longer.

In our Book of Common Prayer there is this note following the service of Burial, I re-read this note with some frequency, when preparing for a funeral, when preparing to attend one. The very love we have for each other is what makes death so very hard:
The liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy. It finds all its meaning in the resurrection. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we, too, shall be raised.

The liturgy, therefore, is characterized by joy, in the certainty that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

This joy, however, does not make human grief unchristian. The very love we have for each other in Christ brings deep sorrow when we are parted by death. Jesus himself wept at the grave of his friend. So, while we rejoice that one we love has entered into the nearer presence of our Lord, we sorrow in sympathy with those who mourn. (BCP 507)


The way we care for, walk with, bury and remember our dead is inflected with the knowledge of God's love that surpasses understanding:
For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.
-1 Thessalonians 4:14


It is significant to me that whatever we might wear in life, in death our bodies are placed under the same pall or veil. Sinner in need of redeeming, neighborhood saint in need of redeeming, rich, poor and in between. Before God our hope is the same, to join in Christ's resurrection. Tonight, Saint Philip's Requiem for All Souls will be held at 7pm, to pray for all souls.


May the peace of the Lord be with you this day as we pray for the beloved of God among the living and the dead,
Taylor

O Christ, to your servants with your saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting. All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.