postID: 7008; title: Remembrance Sunday
no collect_text found
groupKey: secondary
groupKey: other
Array
(
[date] => 2011-11-13 11:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 965
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => formatted
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2011-11-13 11:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2011-11-13postID: 6960 (The Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6960; date_type: variable; year: 2011
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6960
displayDates for postID: 6960/year: 2011
Array
(
[0] => 2011-11-13
)
postPriority: 3postID: 7008 (Remembrance Sunday)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 7008; date_type: variable; year: 2011
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 7008
displayDates for postID: 7008/year: 2011
Array
(
[0] => 2011-11-13
)
postPriority: 1primaryPost found for date: 2011-11-13 with ID: 7008 (Remembrance Sunday)
Remembrance Sunday
Array
(
[date] => 2011-11-13 11:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 965
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => simple
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2011-11-13 11:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2011-11-13postID: 6960 (The Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6960; date_type: variable; year: 2011
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6960
displayDates for postID: 6960/year: 2011
Array
(
[0] => 2011-11-13
)
postPriority: 3postID: 7008 (Remembrance Sunday)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 7008; date_type: variable; year: 2011
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 7008
displayDates for postID: 7008/year: 2011
Array
(
[0] => 2011-11-13
)
postPriority: 1primaryPost found for date: 2011-11-13 with ID: 7008 (Remembrance Sunday)
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
✛
Pray for the Dead? What for?
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Last Sunday, the first Sunday in November, we celebrated All Saints, a great festival which honors the triumphs of Christ in his most faithful servants. We have made it our custom on November’s second Sunday, which is always near Veterans Day, to observe Remembrance Sunday. This is a custom which began in England after the First World War, when the overwhelming numbers of the dead drove the nation to its knees. Since then have been other wars, notably the Second World War, when the survival of the entire Free World was at issue as many millions more were killed.
But there is much more to remember. Here at Saint Thomas we include our congregation’s departed brethren, kinsfolk and benefactors who have passed along to us this goodly heritage. And now for the past decade we have included the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The Church Calendar provided well for this remembrance long ago, when it appointed All Souls Day following directly upon All Saints – that is November 1st and then 2nd – as a day of prayer for all the faithful departed, in the words of one of the prayers, that in the day of Christ’s appearing “they may be manifested as thy children.”
If the saints are the holy ones in heaven, then what about all the other souls of the faithful, and those beyond the visible community of faith? Let me begin by repeating the last paragraph of my All Saints sermon last Sunday: There is no compromise to be made with holiness. It calls for us as our God-given destiny, and we turned towards it when we first were attracted to Jesus. Each of us, as we decide to respond to Christ, is on the way. It is a journey headed only one way – towards and ever more deeply into the kingdom of heaven. There is no turning back. [Well, there is, but consider what that means.] Every aspect of our life is subject to this call and to this pilgrimage.
Holiness, for us, means at last becoming that person whom God our Father truly created us to be; for whom God in Christ went to the cross to save from sin; whom God the Holy Spirit blessed with the faith and the will to follow Christ. It is a life’s work of grace. In our hearts we know this work is unfinished business. I remember a sign in the office of a parish priest: “Be patient. God isn’t finished with me yet.” That is the truth, and the saints themselves, more acutely than the rest of us regulars, knew this truth in their own hearts about themselves.
When we pray for the dead we remember them and hold them in our love and gratitude. But we may do more than that. We pray for them. What for? We pray for God to finish and perfect the good work that he began in them; to bring it to completion, to fruition in fullness. Some of our great prayers on this score from the Book of Common Prayer express this so well:
At the time of death: “Depart O Christian soul out of this world, in the name of God the Father Almighty who created you; in the Name of Jesus Christ who redeemed you; in the Name of the Holy Spirit who sanctifies you. May your rest be this day in peace, and your dwelling place in the paradise of God.”[1]
At the arrival of the body at the Church for the funeral: “Deliver your servant, O Sovereign Lord Christ, from all evil, and set him free from every bond; that he rest with all your saints in the eternal habitations.”[2]
At the end of the funeral, by the coffin: “Acknowledge, we humbly beseech thee, a sheep of thine own fold, a lamb of thine own flock, a sinner of thine own redeeming. Receive her into the arms of thy mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light.”[3]
And there are many more such prayers, all of which ask that, by virtue of the life-giving sacrifice of Jesus Christ, all souls may be washed in the Blood of the sinless Lamb of God, purged and cleansed from every stain of sin, and presented pure and spotless before God, ready to rise in resurrection splendor.[4] It’s a lot to pray for.
I have long felt that the Requiem Mass, the celebration of the Sacrament of Christ’s Death and Resurrection and his Real Presence in his Body and Blood on behalf of the souls departed this life, is among the most powerful and comforting of all the rites of the Church.
And it is a great comfort. It is a comfort beyond words to know we are not to be as people without hope concerning those who have died. The souls of the righteous are indeed in the hand of God where no torment will touch them. They are in peace, the peace of Jesus Christ. This peace is grounded on the glory of Easter. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, then Jesus is more than able to wake them from sleep, to claim them for his own, and to bestow on them the glory of his resurrection. Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
[1] The Book of Common Prayer (1979), p. 464
[2] Ibid, p. 466.
[3] Ibid, p. 483.
[4] Ibid, p. 488.
