Teach us to number our days aright that we may acquire a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12

Every year on All Saints day Lutheran churches, and churches from other traditions, engage in the bittersweet liturgy of the commemoration of the faithful departed.  Basically, the pastor reads from the church records the name of every member of the church who has died all the way back to the start of the congregation.  After each name is spoken, or several names are spoken, a bell tolls.  There is no background music and the parishioners are completely silent. This can take quite awhile in congregations with a long history. By the end, there is not a dry eye in the house.

This year, because we have moved, we have joined a different congregation, one that was a bit older than our previous church.  The Pastor read the names of husbands and wives together, sometimes even children. There were a lot.  We followed the reading with a resounding hymn, For All the Saints, and finished up with Crown Him With Many Crowns.

It was powerful. It was also some food for deep thought and reflection. I look forward to it every year, when we stare death straight in the eye, and yet rejoice in Christ’s work for us, and contemplate being with Christ in the Church Triumphant.

I know that someday my name and my wife’s will be read on the Feast of All Saints and that my sons and daughter will be in the congregation hearing it.

I pray that we will have run the race well and die a good death in the Lord Jesus, and  have done a good job raising our children in the faith.

Grant it Lord Jesus.

By Pat K

Posted in General