All Souls Sunday
Sunday 5th November 2017
All Souls Sunday
Isaiah 65. 17 – end
Hebrews 11. 32- 12.2
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
“They shall not labour in vain, or bear children for calamity.”
We gather tonight, bringing our sadness of course – but also bringing our thanks to God for the love and delight that we have known. That our loved-ones shared with us during their time here on earth. Even if that time seems too short to us, who remain here without them….
It is very nearly 10 years now since I lost my mother, Doris, and we have just passed the 40th anniversary of the death of my Father, Jack in 1977. They were hard-working people, from humble backgrounds, who strove above all to provide me with a happy and secure childhood and to support me in all that I attempted.
I don’t think they always understood me, mind you…. but then what parent ever really does understand their children?
I do not still weep for their loss – and yet I still feel it keenly – as I am sure you do when you think about your loved ones. And I still talk to them on occasion – in fact quite often! Especially when I am faced with a difficult choice or decision. Who here can identify with that?
This past week, containing the three festivals of the dead in the Calendar – Halloween, All Saints’ Day (which we celebrated this morning here, but which actually falls on 1st November) and then All Souls’ Day (which similarly falls on 2nd November) These three days, coming so close together are sometimes compared with the three great days of Easter – the Triduum – Maundy Thursday Good Friday, and the Vigil of Easter.
Now although Halloween is now kept mainly as a secular and even a commercial event, the three days of the Autumn Triduum form their own sacred passage – a powerful mirror image of the energy flowing through the Spring Triduum.
Both deal with the passage from death to life which is at the heart of Christian Faith – and indeed of other mystical paths. But they summon up different emotional and spiritual responses in us.
At Easter the days are lengthening, the earth is springing forth with new life and resurrection energy is already coursing through the physical world.
In the Autumn, the movement is more inward. The days are shortening, the leaves are falling, and the earth is drawing once again into itself, preparing for the cold dark days of winter. The natural world seems to remind us at every turn of our own mortality.
Halloween with all its scarey monsters and ghosts, encourages us to confront the things that terrify us – the nameless horrors – and give them a name. Thereby taming and controlling them. Having faced the shadows that haunt us, we are then free on November 1st to move into a foretaste of the glory to come – the mystical communion of saints. I love to remind people that All Saints is a festival for all of us, for the people at large, not for specific holy people – for we who believe (who want to believe) are all saints. And whatever our regrets and feelings of failure, it is a day when we can take comfort in knowing that God loves and accepts us as we are.
From there, we are then invited on the feast of All Souls to return to our human condition and to acknowledge and grieve the ones we have lost, but also to be grateful for all we have known and loved. And that they knew and loved us. In this way, Death does not get the last word.
In the quiet, brown time of the year, these Autumnal Three Days are an invitation to do some work on our inner lives – on our souls. Like a Gardener who begins at this time of year to tidy away that which has matured and is over, and to dig over the ground and nourish it in preparation for the new season of growth that is to come.
And if we do that internal work and preparation at this time of year, we will find ourselves ready and waiting for the joy and excitement that is to come as we think of the mystery of the incarnation – of Christmas, that lies just over the horizon.
I began this evening thinking about the losses that have affected me personally – but I must make mention of the losses that have affected us as a community.
This year we have had to bid farewell to several people who have played a significant part in the life of this village and especially of this church. I am sure that many of us will be thinking of them as we come to light our candles here tonight – in addition to our personal family members.
And it is time for us to recognize and give thanks for all they did, but to look to the future and carry forward the light that they have helped light and sustain.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, ….. let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”
Amen.