[Propertalk] All Saints - Sunday after - Part 2

[Robert P Morrison]

Here's Part 2 for Sunday after All Saints

	 Yet others – our family members, perhaps – can bring us up short
and make us so glad just to hear a word of kindness and encouragement
when it would have been so easy to say, “Well, of course you’d
never be able to accomplish that? Are you that gullible?”

	 Other human beings – people created in the image of God, bearing
God within them, and letting God speak to us and to everyone through
the way they look at us – other human beings can help us to listen,
to hear God’s voice saying, “It IS possible to love your enemies,
to do good to those who hate you.”

	 THIS is what saints do, day in and day out. They are reflectors of
God and God’s Love. THIS is what can give us so much courage when we
hear the thing we don’t want to hear, even. These are they whom God
has called to live in our midst and to live in our memories, so that
we won’t give up. And the amazing thing is that they don’t all
dress in white and walk around with a shimmering aura around their
heads. They wear black, and red, and brown, and yellow. Some have
stooped backs, some have weak legs, some have difficulty breathing;
some always seem to stand up straight, or to be able to get to our
side exactly when we need company. Whether we hear it or see it or
not, all seem to glow in that special way that says they know God in
their lives, no matter how their own experiences may have challenged
them. These are the saints of God and, still living or not, their
company is something to be treasured and celebrated.

	 Of our departed loved ones, John O’Donohue wrote:

	 “The dead are not distant or absent. They are alongside us. When
we lose someone to death, we lose their physical image and presence,
they slip out of visible form into invisible presence. This alteration
of form is the reason we cannot see the dead. But because we cannot
see them does not mean that they are not there. Transfigured into
eternal form, the dead cannot reverse the journey and even for one
second re-enter their old form to linger with us a while. Though they
cannot reappear, they continue to be near us and part of the healing
of grief is the refinement of our hearts whereby we come to sense
their loving nearness. When we ourselves enter the eternal world and
come to see our lives on earth in full view, we may be surprised at
the immense assistance and support with which our departed loved ones
have accompanied every moment of our lives. In their new, transfigured
presence their compassion, understanding and love take on a divine
depth, enabling them to become secret angels guiding and sheltering
the unfolding of our destiny.” 2

	 As Donohue pointed out, “No life is without its broken, empty
spaces … (but) Beauty is such an attractive and gracious force
precisely because it is so close to the fractured side of
experience.”

	 I see this as the work of God’s saints, transforming our lives,
filling our lives with excitement where we may have thought that
nothing could ever make us smile, or make plans, or take risks again.
If I listen; if ONLY I listen; if only I look, I can see God’s
saints all around me, perhaps speaking in ways I may not fully
understand at the time, yet planting the seeds of Love, of Joy, of
Hope, of Peace, reminding me that I, too, am blessed by the Living,
Loving God.

	 Hey! Hey! Anybody listening?

	 Blessed are you, Lord God of the Universe; through your goodness we
have the saints to encourage us; and through your goodness you call us
to be saints too. 3

	_WITH OR WITHOUT THE FOLLOWING POEM:_

	Poem for All Saints/Souls

	For Those Who Walked With Us 
by Jan Richardson.

	For Those Who Walked With Us « The Painted Prayerbook [1]

	http://paintedprayerbook.com/2013/10/29/for-those-who-walked-with-us/
[2]

	For those 
who walked with us
this is a prayer.

	For those
who have gone ahead,
this is a blessing.

	For those 
who touched and tended us,
who lingered with us
while they lived,
this is a thanksgiving.

	For those
who journey still with us
in the shadows of awareness,
in the crevices of memory,
in the landscape of our dreams

	this is a benediction. 4

	NOTES:

	[1] ©Copyright 1967 by Richard K. Avery and Donald S. Marsh ASCAP,
from _“Hymns Hot and Carols Cool”._ All Rights Reserved.  

	2 John O’Donohue in _“Beauty”_ HarperCollins, New York, New
York. © 2004 see pages 194 ff. Also John O'Donohue | Facebook [3]
https://www.facebook.com/JohnODonohue.AnamCara/ [4] 

	3 Compare, for instance, with Jewish Prayers For All Occasions -
GodWeb [5] http://www.godweb.org/prayer/PrayersJewish.htm [6] ; number
4 at Prayers at the Preparation of the Table - The Church of England
[7]
https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/texts/principal-services/holy-communion/supplem
[8]

	4 _“For Those Who Walked With Us”_  by Jan Richardson. © Jan L.
Richardson. janrichardson.com For Those Who Walked With Us « The
Painted Prayerbook [9]
http://paintedprayerbook.com/2013/10/29/for-those-who-walked-with-us/
[10]

	 

Links:
------
[1]
http://paintedprayerbook.com/2013/10/29/for-those-who-walked-with-us/
[2]
http://paintedprayerbook.com/2013/10/29/for-those-who-walked-with-us/
[3] https://www.facebook.com/JohnODonohue.AnamCara/
[4] https://www.facebook.com/JohnODonohue.AnamCara/
[5] http://www.godweb.org/prayer/PrayersJewish.htm
[6] http://www.godweb.org/prayer/PrayersJewish.htm
[7]
https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/texts/principal-services/holy-communion/supplementaryfront/preptable.aspx
[8]
https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/texts/principal-services/holy-communion/supplem
[9]
http://paintedprayerbook.com/2013/10/29/for-those-who-walked-with-us/
[10]
http://paintedprayerbook.com/2013/10/29/for-those-who-walked-with-us/

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