Dear Friends in Christ,

In just the last month, this parish has held eleven burials. Tomorrow, at 10:00am, we will have the twelfth. There are another five following in the few weeks hence. Even for Saint Philip’s where we hold about thirty funerals a year, this is a breathless pace.

Some of these Christian souls have been pillars of this community. Others are only tangentially known to us—people who may have had a Saint Philip’s connection in the distant past, but have come home, so to speak, for this final Rite of the Church.

But in a profound and beautiful way, all of these people are equal in death, and all of them are equal in the eyes of our Lord who extends his hand to us and says, “I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:3)

One of the difficulties of preaching these services is that, not infrequently, the priest has never met the deceased, and often their families live at great distance—telephone calls and Zoom meetings do not lend themselves to intimate portraits of a human life. Here, the preacher must lean on the fact that each and every one of these people—and indeed each and every one of us—are only truly known, only fully known, by God. Jesus said, “I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” (John 10:14-15)

God knows us from our mothers’ wombs. God knows us in our triumphs and in our failures. God knows us in our saintliness and in our sinfulness. God knows us at our ends. And this is why, in the final commendation of the Burial Office, the priest prays,

“Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant N. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light.” (Book of Common Prayer, 499)

In ten days’ time, we will celebrate All Saints’ Day, and then the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, commonly called All Souls. The first is an opportunity to recall the “heroic sanctity” of those particular saints whom the Church remembers in her Kalendars. The second is an opportunity to remember all the faithful departed—those known to us, and those known to God alone. We will pray for them, and in turn ask that they pray for us. It is an unique opportunity for us to consider our own mortality, but also to take solace in the fact that Christ Jesus, by his Cross and Passion, and in his glorious Resurrection has conquered death for ever.

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55)

So as we head to this Allhallowtide, let us fix our eyes not just on the Cross, but on the empty tomb. And let us turn not just to Scripture, but to the whole corpus of Christian art, music, and poetry, that can deepen our knowledge of this holy mystery.

Tomorrow, Saturday, October 24, at 4:00pm, the Choirs of Saint Philip’s will give a free concert of Johannes Brahms’s German Requiem. We hope to see you there.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Matthew