Patrick Comerford
We have moved in the Church Calendar from Ordinary Time to the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent, and tomorrow is the Fourth Sunday before Advent (3 November 2024). Today in the Church Calendar is All Souls’ Day (2 November), or the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed.
All Souls’ Day is being marked later today in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching, with an All Souls’ Day service this evening (7:30), when the celebrant is Canon Roannie W Cannidy, canon precentor of Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, and the preacher is the Revd Peter Augustine, one of the cathedral priests.
People have been invited to write the name or names of their faithful departed and drop them into a special box at the front of the chancel steps in the cathedral. Although only the names of past bishops and clergy will be read out during the intercessions this evening, all submitted names will be shown on the screens during the service. In addition, many people are expected to visit the graves and tombs of family members during the day.
Before today begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
John 6: 37-40 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 37 ‘Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; 38 for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.’
Today’s Reflection:
November is a month when we traditionally remember the saints, the Communion of Saints, those we love and who are now gathered around the throne of God, those who have died and who we still love.
As the evenings close in, as the last autumn leaves fall from the trees, it is natural to remember the dead and the fallen, with love and affection.
All Saints’ Day yesterday (1 November) is one of the 12 Principal Feasts of the Church. In many parts of the Anglican Communion, today (2 November) is All Souls’ Day or the ‘Commemoration of the Faithful Departed’ (Common Worship, p 15). In Ireland, 6 November traditionally recalls ‘All Saints of Ireland.’ This year we mark Remembrance Sunday next Sunday (10 November), and Remembrance Day is on 11 November.
In recent days, Charlotte and I have wandered through some of the Chinese graveyards in the Kuching area, but have yet to find the place where her grandparents are buried.
At this time of the year – especially this year – there are a number of people in my own family I am remembering, including: my mother, Ellen (Murphy) Comerford, who died 10 years ago, on 20 May 2014;
my father, Stephen Edward Comerford, who died 20 years ago on 27 December 2004; my brother, Stephen Edward Comerford, who died on 18 December 1970;
my foster mother, Peggy Kerr, who died on 27 July 2010, and my foster father George Kerr;
and, at this time of the year, my ‘Gran’, Mary (McCarthy) Hallinan, who died on 6 November 1961; and ‘Granddad’ Edmond Hallinan, who died on 8 March 1963.
Hallowe’en, which was even marked in many places in Kuching this week, is the day before we remember the Hallowed, not as the dead but as the blessed, the saints, who are models for our lives, our Christian lifestyle today.
When he was Dean of Liverpool, Archbishop Justin Welby organised a Hallowe’en service he labelled ‘Night of the Living Dead’. At first, it sounds ghoulish. But that’s what it is … the ‘Night of the Living Dead’. We believe the dead we love are still caught up in the love of God and are alive in Christ.
Indeed, saints do not need to be dead to be examples of ‘holy living and holy dying’ (Jeremy Taylor).
Saint Paul regularly refers in his letters to fellow Christians as ‘saints.’ Saints Alive!
In the past, I have realised how many people and parishes have been shy, reluctant, perhaps even fearful, in the Church of Ireland when it comes to recalling, commemorating and celebrating the saints. A comparison of the calendars of the Church of Ireland and the Church of England is very telling.
Perhaps the people who decided on the calendar in the Church of Ireland were too afraid in the past of being seen to pray to the saints, or to pray for the dead. But, really, these are quite different to finding examples of godly living among Christians from the past, and expressing confidence that the dead we have loved are now committed to God’s love.
Yet the Church of England sees the calendar of saints as a living calendar, something that is added to as we find more appropriate examples of Christian living for today.
Saints do not have to be martyrs. But in recent years Oscar Romero was canonised and there was a major commemoration in Westminster Abbey of Oscar Romero in 2017 to mark his 100th birthday.
Saints do not have to be canonised. Modern martyrs may include Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, or Heather Heyer, the civil rights activist killed by far-right neo-Nazis and racists in Charlottesville, Kentucky, in 2017.
Many of us we know people who handed on the faith to us – teachers, grandparents, perhaps neighbours. Even though many may be long dead, they remain part of our vision of the Communion of Saints.
Saints do not have to live a perfect life … none of us is without sin, and none of us is beyond redemption. Some of the saints carved on the West Front of Westminster Abbey might have been very surprised to know they were going to appear there. But their lives in sum total are what we are asked to think about.
They are: Maximilian Kolbe, Manche Masemola, Archbishop Janani Luwum, Grand Duchess Elizabeth, Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Esther John, Lucian Tapiedi, and Wang Zhiming.
Some years ago, I asked students to share stories of their favourite ‘saints and heroes.’ They included an interesting array of people, some who were the still living at the time, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
In the back-page interviews in the Church Times, people are sometimes asked who they would like to be locked into a church with for a few hours.
Who are your favourite saints?
Who would you like to learn from a little more when it comes to living the Christian life?
In the Apostles’ Creed, we confess our faith which includes our belief in ‘the communion of saints’ and ‘the resurrection of the body.’ In Nicene Creed, we express our belief in ‘the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
In the introduction to the Church Calendar and this in-between time, the time between All Saints and Advent, the resources for Common Worship remind us that ‘No Christian is solitary. Through baptism we become members one of another in Christ, members of a company of saints whose mutual belonging transcends death’. The resources then quote Charles Wesley:
One family, we dwell in him,
one Church, above, beneath;
though now divided by the stream,
the narrow stream of death.
Who are the saints in your life, in your own personal calendars? Who are those you recall whose souls we have committed to God’s love and who are part of ‘the communion of saints’?
Throughout the month of November, there are opportunities to remember their names as we are reminded in the first reading today that ‘The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, no torment will ever touch them’ (Wisdom 3: 1).
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 2 November 2024, All Souls’ Day):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘All Saints’ Day’. This theme was introduced last Sunday with a programme update by the Revd Dr Duncan Dormor, General Secretary, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 2 November 2024, All Souls’ Day) invites us to pray:
We give thanks for those who gone before us in the faith, may they rest in the mercy of God.
The Collect:
Eternal God, our maker and redeemer,
grant us, with all the faithful departed,
the sure benefits of your Son’s saving passion
and glorious resurrection
that, in the last day,
when you gather up all things in Christ,
we may with them enjoy the fullness of your promises;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
God of love,
may the death and resurrection of Christ,
which we have celebrated in this Eucharist,
bring us, with all the faithful departed,
into the peace of your eternal home.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ,
our rock and our salvation,
to whom be glory for time and for eternity.
Collect on the Eve of the Fourth Sunday before Advent:
Almighty and eternal God,
you have kindled the flame of love
in the hearts of the saints:
grant to us the same faith and power of love,
that, as we rejoice in their triumphs,
we may be sustained by their example and fellowship;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
