November is one of the most poignant months of not just the calendar year but the Church’s year as well. For both calendars focus on ‘remembrance’ in one way or another.
Next weekend we will see gatherings at war memorials across the country paying respects to those who died in the wars and conflicts of the 20th century and in the years since. And, we will acknowledge those conflicts still raging today across the globe and the heartbreak and devastation they cause.
For the Church we have many times of remembrance this month. Beginning with All Saints, when we remember those of our faith who stood out in someway in the proclamation of the Good News of Christ and we include in this number those who were martyred and those who died in Christ’s service looking after others. Those of sacred memory.
All Saints Day is closely followed by All Souls Day, when we remember our personal loved ones departed or as it often prayed:
“…those we love but see no longer”
These are those of blessed memory.
We then join the wider society at Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day praying for all who have died in war and conflict and we also pray for peace amongst the nations, peoples and all caught up in any feud war, or trouble. Remembering those we may not know but to whom we are grateful.
It does not end there for the Church, we have the closing of the Church’s year, culminating in the modern feast of Christ-the-King. A feast initiated in the Roman Catholic Church in 1925 as an antidote to rising secularism, and extreme political ideologies following the First World War. A feast that acknowledges Christ as the world’s supreme ruler, a servant king not an aggressive warrior ruler. It is a feast that calls for the end of a human focused reign, a reign that does not respect all of God’s people and creation for the all loving and encompassing rule of Christ, of peace and gentleness. It is a feast that looks forward to a time when war and death will be no more. As the old prayer book collect used to say on the Last Sunday after Trinity:
“Stir up, we beseech thee O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may be plenteously rewarded …”
This prayer to me seems to sum up the month of November with all its times of remembrance in one fashion or another, both sacred and secular. It prays that we will all be so agitated that we seek peace, harmony and justice for all - the true fruits of the Spirit’s good works - and in doing so be rewarded by God for what we do in the future and how we make recompense for the past.
We all have much recompense to make. We have all sinned and not lived up to God’s expectation of us and when we pray in remembrance for those who have died in the various services this month we also acknowledge that they like us were also sinners but as the late Cardinal Basil Hume once wrote (and I paraphrase):
“(they) will have had the opportunity in their death to whisper in the ear of God those things they wish they had not done in the acknowledge that they will be utterly forgiven and unconditionally loved for all eternity if they do so.”
I have to admit that Hume’s words have long encouraged me, for all of us need God’s second chance. We are as Hume suggests given that opportunity to freely respond to God’s unconditional love or not.
There is, however, one prayer that we pray this month, that for me personally, is very important and it may be for you too:
“Rest eternal grant to … (them), O Lord and let light perpetual shine upon them. May they rest in peace and rise in glory.”
I know and believe that my loved ones departed are already safe in the loving embrace of God. That they rest in peace and in that perpetual light of the Creator. But, I love saying this prayer as I remember them. It reminds me and comforts me that they are in the eternal light of God, resting safely in peace and that one day I will join them and rest with them until we all rise in glory in God’s good time. When I pray that prayer I am not praying for time off purgatory for them I am praying with thanksgiving that they already rest in God’s peace as God has always promised us.
November maybe a time of remembrance in a multitude of ways and a time of acknowledging endings but it is also a time of looking forward to the future as new years begin both in our Church and later in wider society. It is a month tinged with sadness but also one wrapped in hope as well.
All things change, we hope, as God tells us they will, and that they will eventually, change for the better, even if that is in God’s time rather than our time.