My 13th All Saints 2015

All Saints Day 2015 Reflection

All Saints Church

Thomas E Wilson, Rector

Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9        Psalm 24    Revelation 21:1-6a      John 11:32-44

My 13^th All Saints 2015

In Rome there is this early 2^nd Century building called the Pantheon. It was a memorial to be a place of reverence of all the Gods, known and unknown. It was not a Temple where Gods were worshipped, but it was used as a memorial to a man who had served as a Consul for three times and had been a friend and ally of Caesar Augustus. It has this huge dome to give the sense of the heavens in which all the Gods dwell. Walking into this building took my breath away for it was constructed to remind all that come into this place that there is a dimension of this life that is greater than our imagination; there is a power greater than ourselves. At the top of the dome there is an oculus, a hole where the natural sunlight shines through to move around the inside of the building like a reverse sundial. The Divine light shines into all the corners of the room, much as the Divine light shines in all parts of our lives. In 609-610 the Pantheon was given to the church and Pope Boniface IV consecrated it as a church with a service in which he urged that there be a service every year in every place to celebrate all those, known and unknown, living or dead, who acknowledge that God’s light shines on them and through them. Out of that developed the Feast of All Saints. 

 

Today is All Saints’ Day, the Patronal Festival of this church, and when we say All Saints, we mean all who come here in life or imagination or memory who have an awareness of God in their life. Notice I don’t say people who are good, but All - all of us schmucks who know that we cannot make it through the day without connecting with God. The day after All Saints’ Day is called All Souls Day when, since the 10^th Century starting in the Benedictine Monasteries and then spreading out to all the churches, there were held Masses for all the Faithfully Departed who had died in the previous year. What we tend to do is conflate the two days into one day, and we remember all those who have died as a way of honoring the presence of God in our life and in our death. 

We take death seriously and do not separate the dead from our lives so easily. We acknowledge that the dead have formed our lives and their spirits are still seemingly alive in our lives. Every time I walk into this building, my soul is flooded with the memory and spiritual presence of those I have known in this place. And not just people I have known in this place, but the people I bring in with me, just underneath the surface of my conscious, and all it takes is a moment when a word or an action reminds me of that person and they are with me over the miles or years that separate us. Every Eucharist I am part of and in which I am open to God’s spirit, I am aware of the fact that my spirit and the spirit of each person here, all those we bring here in prayer and each person past and present are open to Communion, to be in union with one another. Every time I begin the service by striking the bowl, I am announcing that we are entering into intentional holy space and time and inviting all of us to enter into that holy space and time, asking, like Jesus in the Gospel lesson for today, for the spirits of the dead - dead in life or dead in spirit - to come out of their tombs and join us in living fully into God. 

From John Donne’s Meditation XVII:  

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. 

My 13^th All Saints 2015 (poem) 

Air between rafters adjusting to a new spirit breathing.  

Stragglers come, seeing each other after weekly break,  

as noise ebb and flow waiting for bowl struck echoing  

call to stand filling seats as to room for others do make.  

The Bowl is struck, the lines form, and the procession  

begins like being led by a waiter to the Thanksgiving  

banquet foretaste as we head to the table to refreshen  

hopes plus strengths for some new kind of life living.   

Place already filling with invisibles adjoining silently   

with us corporeal beings. Those are ones whose spirits  

join times of worship. I see the ones for whom I litany  

had for said when they were buried as loving parents,  

solid friends, loved child, or glancing strangers; they  

are all here in communion on table's other side. At first  

were moved away John and Dick; leaves us then to pray  

sadly to unexpected news. Hopes avoiding more, burst   

with Butch on a hard January. Weeks of burden weigh  

remembering oh too short days of Wally and Elizabeth.  

Then followed in heart rending loss of Bob, Frank, Bill,   

Virginia, Ruthie, Cleo, Ron, Kit, Pastor Bob, Larry, Flo,   

Eileen, Emma, Lillian, Virginia, Rebecca, Annette, Dan,  

Francis, Gertrude, Charlotte, Anne, Tommy, Eloise, Lizzie,   

Jennifer, Katherine, Geoff, Fred, Doug, Gwen, Alex, David,  

Jack, Joan, Tom, Juliette, Marge, Al, Dick, Jane, Judy, Doug,   

Nick, Martha, Bob, Jerry, Mavis, Eva, Jim, Sam, Kim, Bob,   

Milt, Gilberta, Rhea, and last, quickly giving peace to Janet.   

Then were on other sites I helped replace hope for moan.  

Some moved to other places to cross the shore there away;  

Skip, Margie, Ryland, Helen. Others to me name unknown   

but loved, for some in life this place never known did sway  

our souls, and bring shared mother, brothers, fathers, sown  

as cousins joyfully coming, joining us on All Saints to pray  

here; hear and see, thin places where All Saints are shown.