November Reflection 

Dear Sisters and Brothers, 

On November the 1st we celebrated the feast of All Saints, followed by All Souls on November the 2nd. What are we doing as we commemorate the saints and remember our loved ones departed?  Simply put, we are remembering with gratitude those who we have known and loved who have died and gone to God before us and we are giving thanks for those deemed to be saints and asking for their prayers as we try to live a good Christian life.

The saints are those named by the church as being good examples to us of how to live a life dedicated to the service of Christ and to God’s people. They range from the obscure and eccentric to the known and remembered. They are remembered by the Church and us as an encouragement in how we attempt to live our lives in the light of Christ.  Like us the saints are flawed and all too human, but that I think can be more of a help than a hindrance, as we can see in them ourselves and we can be encouraged in the lives we are trying to live. Alongside the saints we are also remembering the departed.

A most helpful comment comes from the late Cardinal Basil Hume, who once wrote that he believed that at the point of death we get to whisper into God’s ear all the things we want to tell him, with the opportunity to say sorry for the things we got wrong, knowing that as we do so we are fully accepted and welcomed into his loving embrace. As helpful as this comment may be it does not, however, remove the pain of loss and separation that we feel when our loved ones die. That pain is often raw for a long time and I actually think that one never really gets over it but learns to live with the pain better as time passes. The one thing we never do is to forget those we have loved and lost – they remain alive in our memories, hearts and consciousness. What this means is that every time we think of them, be it with tears or with laughter, or when we do something they taught us, we keep their memory alive and in doing so bring ourselves comfort.

There is a funeral prayer that talks of using aright the time that we have left : “Grant us, Lord, the wisdom and the grace to use aright the time that is left to us here on earth. Lead us to repent of our sins, the evil we have done and the good we have not done; and strengthen us to follow the steps of your Son, in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”  This prayer reminds us that we all pass through this life quite quickly and that we should try and make the most of it as we do so.  We need to regularly reflect upon our lives, to give thanks for the good things and to make amends for the things we got wrong wherever we can.

God Bless,

 Reverend Dawn