Welcome to the November 2000 On-Line Edition of

St George's News

Waterlooville's Parish Magazine

FROM THE VICAR

November is a month of remembrance when we think of the souls of the departed. We begin with the festival of All Saints and on the next day with the Commemoration of All Souls and on the 12th we remember the war dead on Remembrance Sunday.

I take quite a lot of funerals during the course of the year, some in church and many others at the crematorium. When I visit the bereaved, I try to find out about the departed loved one and include something about them in the service. During the funeral service in the short time allowed, I also try and say something about life 'on another shore and in a greater light'. Listening to some of the funeral service of the late Donald Dewar recently from the Presbyterian Kirk in Glasgow, there seemed to be an awful lot of eulogizing about the deceased and little or no prayer for the repose of his soul, which is not surprising, as in the protestant tradition it is not allowed to pray for the dead.

The Catholic Faith believes that we are on a journey after death, from earth to our homeland in heaven. We need to avoid hell and gain heaven. In St John's Gospel, Jesus tells us that there are 'many mansions', 'many rooms' in his father's house and he has gone on to prepare a place for those who follow him. It is not clear as to the time when we shall arrive in heaven and into these mansions or rooms. It began when we were baptised and the words of our Lord, suggest that he has gone on (a journey?) to "prepare" a place for us. To take that journey also implies a preparation (in Paradise?) before we can come to the Father's house in heaven.

The other hope for the Christian is that we shall be united with our loved ones who have been faithful to Christ. We have all experienced something of God's love in this life in our relationships with our loved ones on earth, what a wonderful hope it is in the eternal life won for us by Christ in his death and resurrection.

Lastly, we shall "put on" our resurrection bodies. I am not talking of immortality, but the resurrection of the body. We shall all be perfect in the new life and be recognised for who we are. The Catholic Faith affirms its belief in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come. St Paul assures us that, those who have been faithful to the end, will see their reward.

Our human words are inadequate in trying to express the things we shall experience, but William Draper in his beautiful hymn of remembrance put it so well:

In our day of thanksgiving one psalm let us offer,
For the saints who before us have found their reward;
When the shadow of death fell upon them, we sorrowed,
But now we rejoice that they rest in the Lord.

Sing praise then, for all who here sought and here found him,
Whose journey is ended, whose perils are past:
They believed in the light and it's glory is round them,
Where the clouds of earth's sorrow are lifted at last.

May they rest in peace and rise in the glory of the resurrection.

Your friend and priest

Malcolm Ferrier.

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