| Prayer and Thought | ||||||
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History and The Friends of Great St Mary's
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This month's message:
I sometimes
feel that I go to too-many
funerals (it is a selfish feeling of course,
more concerned with `me' than with the pain and grief of
others), - but whether these are funerals of
members of
my own family friends
–
or services that I take as a minister of the Church of England, I seldom
find myself unmoved by the event, and almost always feel enriched
somehow - spiritually
and emotionally.
There is a tremendous privilege in getting to know about someone who has
conducted - it is what a person
died, - through the eyes of those who
knew and loved them and quite often
I leave the funeral of someone who I
didn't know
in this life rejoicing in
the Christian hope that I may come to
know them in the next.
At a recent family funeral, the
Dean of
the Cathedral conducting the service
used the phrase `We live in deeds, not
in years' . This has been clear in the
remembrances of friends and loved
ones in all the funerals I have attended or
conducted – it is what a person
has done in their life, their relationships
and their kindnesses which count
and not the number of their years.
John's gospel relates the time when
Jesus wept at the tomb of his friend
Lazarus - even though he knew he
was about to raise Lazarus from the
dead. We cannot know for certain
what moved Jesus to tears about the
death of Lazarus but perhaps part of it was his awareness of just how
short
our mortal life can be - and how rare
and precious the opportunities we have
for deeds of kindness and acts of love.
As a Christian I believe that eternal life
is a reality offered to all, - an
eternal
life in God's kingdom where death and suffering have no
place and where we
are held in love by the source of all
love. Yet if we are to be citizens of
God's kingdom, how shall we 'fit-in',
how shall we cope with that glorious
vision of a healed and happy eternity,
if we have not, in this life made the
best of all our heaven-sent opportunities
for
deeds of kindness and acts of love
which bring life to others?
So let us not be afraid to weep with
others as Jesus did - or to rejoice as
he did also, but let us especially be like
Jesus in the sharing of God's love in
the world. Rob Wynford-Harris, Assistant Curate
Great Saint Mary's Church. |
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