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Festal Letter No.2 (All Saints' Day 2024)

A Festal Letter to the Faithful of St German's, All Saints' Day 2024.

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RevdJarelRobinson-Brown
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155 views2 pages

Festal Letter No.2 (All Saints' Day 2024)

A Festal Letter to the Faithful of St German's, All Saints' Day 2024.

Uploaded by

RevdJarelRobinson-Brown
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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J–M–J

~ A FESTAL LETTER TO THE FAITHFUL OF ST GERMAN’S ~


‘Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of
an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be
changed.’ 1 Corinthians 15
Dear Friends, A Blessed Feast of All Saints’ to you!
You will all mostly be familiar with the word ‘Triduum’ meaning Three Days. For most of us, when
we hear that word we think of the Triduum which is Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday
– the Paschal, or Easter Triduum which prepares us for our celebration of the resurrection of Our Lord
on Easter Day. But there is in the seasons of the Church another Triduum, which is if you like the Triduum
of Death – All Hallows’ Eve (Halloween), All Saints’ Day (All Hallows’), and All Souls’ Day – three
days in the Church’s year when we focus our minds on those who have gone before us, marking especially
the Saints who have gone before us in full confidence to eternity. Since the earliest times, Christians have
honoured the dead. Some of the earliest altars in existence were built directly on top of martyrs tombs,
or on the sites where they publicly shed their blood for the faith. By the 8th century the custom of keeping
three days for the dead was popular, and on All Souls’ thanks to Odilo of Cluny, a Benedictine Abbot, a
custom began in the Latin Church of the West of which we are a part, which formed the tradition of
praying for all the faithful departed, rather than just the martyrs and Saints.
I want to take this opportunity to remind each of us of the enormous witness that a good, well
thought-through Christian Funeral can be. I should express quite a bit of discomfort at the number of
funerals now which, in a growing trend, seem to prefer not to allow people’s bodies to come to Church
– people preferring to have a service at the Crematorium followed by a service of Thanksgiving, or people
not wanting the celebration of the Mass at a Funeral. There is something really quite profound about
offering the full funeral rites of the Church for a Christian whose life on earth has come to its end – and I
would encourage you to think about whether a Solemn Requiem Mass for your own funeral might be
fitting? If you’d like to speak to me about this, then please do.
One of the ways we show our love and care for those we leave behind, indeed one of the ways in which
we proclaim our confidence in the Gospel, is by having our affairs in this regard in order – and I can assure
you, it can be a great comfort to those who mourn you to know exactly what it is you would like. Some
very basic things to consider might be: What are my favourite hymns? Do I want to be buried or
cremated? Where do I want my funeral service to take place, and who would I like to take it?
Answering these questions alone, even on the back of an envelope placed somewhere strategic and
obvious(!), can be a real help to the grieving, can save family arguments and ensure that what you would
like to happen is respected. Very often, families like to insist on ‘Celebration of Life’ services for people
in an attempt to lighten the grief – but what the Church does well, I think, is enable people to face the
pain of loss, and to have that pain held in a context in which death does not have the last word.
The Church enters a rather sombre mood tomorrow on All Souls’ Day – the vestments are Black, the
candles are unbleached, there is less ritual than normal, and the liturgy takes on a much more mournful
tone than we might like. But this sombreness has as a constant current running through it which speaks
clearly but calmly of our hope in God which is a hope beyond death. It reminds us of the fact that our
ability to mourn is only possible because we do not mourn as those without hope. The beauty of our

Metal Street CF24 0JY | www.saintcf24.org | @StGermanCardiff


J–M–J

Christian faith is that we are able to rejoice in the fact that we die, because for a Christian ‘death’ is simply
another way of spelling ‘life’. The same Jesus who weeps at the grave of his friend Lazarus, is the very
same Jesus who calls to a dead Lazarus with the words ‘come out!’ and who sees his friend walk out of
the grave. Part of our gathering in Church on All Souls’ Day, is not simply for us to mourn for those
whom we have personally lost and long for, but for us to pray for those who have no one else to pray for
them, and to stand in solidarity with the grieving all around our world. So much of what we do in the
liturgy week in and week out is about this kind of solidarity – this kind of standing, sitting and kneeling
together. In our liturgy on Saturday, we remind our world of the importance of marking death, and of
staking our hope on the risen Lord. To grieve in a world that denies grief, is to bear witness to what it
means to be human, and to weep in a world that so often neglects to shed tears, is again to bear witness
to what it means to be human.
My prayer is that we might each, in life and at our life’s end, take refuge in the rites of the Church. Rites
which proclaim so powerfully our faith and trust in loves redeeming work and in the crucified and risen
Christ who Shepherds us through life from our first breath to our last – and who himself knows what it is
to grieve, and to die, and to live beyond death.
May the Saints of God inspire us to hold firmly to our trust in all the promises of God, until we are called
to the Father, and see God face to face in the splendour of that Kingdom where weeping and sighing shall
cease. And may the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
In Christ,

Fr Jarel

‘All of us go down to the dust, yet even at the grave we make our song:
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!’
- The Book of Common Prayer

Father Jarel Robinson-Brown All Saints’ Day 2024

E: [email protected]
M: 07300211640

Metal Street CF24 0JY | www.saintcf24.org | @StGermanCardiff

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