Newsletter for Sunday 12 November 2017

10 Nov

Red Poppies remind us of our Christian Mission

Around my village, on the lamp posts down the main street, there appeared last weekend large red poppies and at either end of that main street yellow signs appeared too, telling motorists that the road would be closed on Sunday 12th from 12.30 – 3pm for the Village Remembrance Parade and service. There will be a brass band, flags and uniformed groups and many villagers and we will stand silently as the names of those who have died in the World Wars and subsequent conflicts are read out and commemorated.

In this season of the Dead, November, we rejoice at the triumph of the Saints in glory, those in whom the victory of the Cross is completed. We pray for the Holy Souls making their way through the purification of Purgatory into the eternal Presence of God. We stand before the cenotaphs and war memorials of the fallen in high streets, village greens and churches, remembering those whose lives were offered for the defeat of tyranny, and who have paid the price of the sins of the nations.

We Christians mourn because we are human. We are affected by the love of those we see no longer.  BUT ‘we do not mourn as those without hope.’

If our season of prayer for and with the dead ends simply in tears and despair, then we haven’t heard the Gospel of Jesus. We though stand foursquare in Christ, in His death and Resurrection. We stand at the foot of the Cross and see the cost of our sins and the shattering fragility of life in the face of death. We stand in the light of the Resurrection, inheritors, through grace and faith, of the miracle and mystery of the Third Day and Our Lord’s promise, heard today, of His return.

We weep at the grave, we stand in solemn silence at the Memorials, yet we people of faith know that, as the dawn rises on the farther shoreline we will meet again in the eternal life of the Risen Christ.  In this Season of Remembrance and of the Holy Souls, we the dying, must redouble our prayers for those who have gone before and more especially for our fellow mortals who, as yet without Christ, will die without hope.

The Mission goes on!!  Sharing and living our Catholic Faith!

It’s not an optional extra.         It’s truly a matter of life and death.

Deacon David OLW

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