A message from the Rev’d David Heatley

Posted by Admin on 29 October 2021, 4:05 pm

Amanda Collinson

Priest-in-Charge

St John the Baptist Church

Northwood.

Tel: 01983 294913

Email: amandacollinson01@gmail.com

A message from the Rev’d David Heatley:

Good morning to you all,

November 1^st is All Saints Day, a day that is especially important to our friends in Gurnard as this is the dedication of their parish church. We remember that we are part of that great company that no one can number, the Communion of Saints, those who have gone before us, ourselves, and those who will come after us. November is the month for remembrance, on Remembrance Sunday we remember and give thanks for those who have died in the service of their country, and all the victims of conflicts, past and present. November 2^nd is All Souls Day when we can remember and give thanks for all the departed. Christians have always remembered in their prayers those whom we love but see no longer. This is something especially poignant at the present time when we think of those who have died in the pandemic.

Doing this we may think “Where are they?”. When we die we leave the realm of time and space and pass into the eternal, into, we believe, the nearer presence and greater knowledge of God. We take comfort in the knowledge that our separation from them is only apparent. St Paul reminds us in his great hymn to love: Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. We can think of our loved ones on the other side of that mirror. Both the living and the dead, those in this world and the next are in the presence of God.

Our departed relatives and friends have entered more fully than we into truth, beauty and goodness. Our loved ones are safe, Jesus promises us: Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. The coming Jesus promises happens to each one of us when it is our turn to pass through the door of death, to step outside time and space and to put our hand into the hand of God.

Remembering with love and thanksgiving our dear ones who have died, we can take strength from the Christian hope, from the triumphant words of St Paul: I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

A prayer for this month: O Lord our God, from whom neither life nor death can separate those who trust in your love, and whose love holds in its embrace your children in this world and the next: so unite us to yourself, that in fellowship with you, we may always be united to our loved ones, whether here or there; give us courage, constancy and hope; through him who died and was buried and rose again for us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Rev’d David Heatley

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