Tomorrow there is another funeral to do in my parish. When I went to Lui South Sudan one of the priests there asked me "What do you do if the scriptures assigned for a funeral have nothing to do with the person you are burying?" I was surprised. I had thought only our culture who tries to deny death was having this problem of only doing homily's about the person who had died and not preaching the scripture which we are assigned.
I'm not saying we should ignore the person who died, but we are a people of the cross. We believe in the hope of resurrection. One of the scriptures is from Romans 8:37-39 which says that nothing separates us from the love of God in Christ. I think this is a comfort to those who have lost someone. As I said a few days ago our prayers at the time of death over the body are beautiful. They are beautiful because they remind us all that we are claimed by Christ even in death. When we ask that God recognize a sheep of God's own fold we are saying we are God's. When we ask that the deceased by washed in the eternal font, we are remembering our baptism and being marked as Christ's forever. There is true power in claiming our hope of being with God forever and the hope that this is not the end for us, but a new beginning.
After having the scripture from Luke yesterday which took us to the feet of the cross there is no other way to face the promise we have as Christians. We are Christ's forever. May we be able to face the truth of being truly claimed as one of God's own children.
I'm not saying we should ignore the person who died, but we are a people of the cross. We believe in the hope of resurrection. One of the scriptures is from Romans 8:37-39 which says that nothing separates us from the love of God in Christ. I think this is a comfort to those who have lost someone. As I said a few days ago our prayers at the time of death over the body are beautiful. They are beautiful because they remind us all that we are claimed by Christ even in death. When we ask that God recognize a sheep of God's own fold we are saying we are God's. When we ask that the deceased by washed in the eternal font, we are remembering our baptism and being marked as Christ's forever. There is true power in claiming our hope of being with God forever and the hope that this is not the end for us, but a new beginning.
After having the scripture from Luke yesterday which took us to the feet of the cross there is no other way to face the promise we have as Christians. We are Christ's forever. May we be able to face the truth of being truly claimed as one of God's own children.
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