St Mary's Church, Mudford

                                         November 2024

This month's message comes from our good friend Rev. Jeremy Swayne

Dear Friends

I hope you may be reading this in time to join friends and neighbours for the All-Souls Day service at 4.00 p.m. on 3rd November at St Mary’s, Mudford; an opportunity to remember loved ones who have died, and to reflect on the life we have shared with them.

Except in some liturgy, and the poetry of hymns, the Soul seems to be a neglected theme in our Anglican Church, which is a sad omission. Jesus spoke plainly of the Soul as our true self. It is the unique essence of all that we are and all that we become on our journey through this life; our imperishable essence that journeys on beyond the gateway that we call death to our new life in Christ.

So, All Souls Day is a most important day of prayer and reflection. Firstly, for remembrance. In the course of the service, we remember people that we have loved and who have loved us; and people who have been important to us in our lives. We do so with thankfulness and with sadness; a sadness that is the other face of the coin of the joy that we experienced in the life we shared with them. Sometimes we must allow, too, for the sadness of regret. Because our relationships are not always perfect. So, we need to remember that ‘many waters cannot quench love’; and that, where there is love, particularly within the love of God, ‘all will be well’, and all is forgiven.

Then, of course, we are honouring the soul of our departed loved ones, the essence of the person we knew. Who lives now in that place that Jesus spoke about that he has prepared for us; and the way to which he has revealed to us in his own resurrection. We have his promise that where he is, the loved ones we remember today are now also.

And a third theme to reflect on is that we are all souls. And it is in our own souls, as well as our hearts and minds, that we remember them. We may remember their touch, their embrace, their handshake, their gaze, their wisdom, their kindness – so many things that we may remember and celebrate about them. But we are people of body, mind and spirit. And while we call our loved ones to mind today, it is also in spirit, in the depths of our souls, that we are in communion with them.

Jeremy