Homily for All Souls Day, November 2
Homily November 2, 2008
All Souls Day
When I read that Gospel and the words, “I will not reject anyone who comes to me,” I was reminded of a little boy I met ten years ago. I don't know what's happened to him since. I was doing a funeral at a funeral home, and I was all prepared with what I was going to do. But somebody came to me right before the funeral and pointed out this little boy, and they said, "He is very worried because his grandmother didn't go to church, and he is afraid that she won't go to heaven."
So I quickly readjusted my thoughts and I read this Gospel. And I just looked at him and I said, "Jesus said in the Gospel today and listen to what he said 'I will not reject anyone who comes to me.' Do you believe that?"
Well, I want to just ask all of you that same question today. Hear again the words of Jesus. "Everyone whom the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me. Indeed, this is God's will, that I lose nothing that he has given me." Do you believe that? Amen. And I think it's always important that we frame things like grieving in that faith.
And now I want to give the homily I give every year on All Souls day. I begin with this same memory. It must be 26 or 27 years ago now, I remember going to a Hanukkah service at Temple Beth El Zedeck, and I noticed that during the course of the service, the Cantor or lector or whoever he was, said several times, "Will the mourners please rise," and then they would say a prayer over them.
That happened several times during the service, so I turned to Sandy Sasso, the Rabbi, and I said, "Sandy, who is a mourner?"
And she said, "Well, in our tradition we consider someone a mourner for a full year after the death of a loved one, and every year thereafter on the anniversary of that death."
I also noticed, by the way, they had names on the wall with lights next to those names, and some of those names would be lit. I thought, "What a beautiful tradition, and how different it is from us."
I was talking to somebody just a couple weeks week ago who felt guilty because she were still grieving, and who was saying to herself, "I know I ought to be over this."
Unfortunately sometimes people treat people that way. When someone dies everybody is around you and close to you, but as time goes on, people begin thinking, "Why don't they get over it?" And you know, underlying that is something of an attitude I think we have. Let me throw it out and see if you agree with me. We think of ourself as this self enclosed fortress like thing that's invaded by unwanted feelings, feelings like grief or anger or sadness or, well, you can go on. Does it fit? Do we think we've been invaded by these feelings and we try to get rid of them, or we try to push them away, or we throw up the walls to protect ourselves from them and keep them out?
What if these feelings are ladders that are thrown out for us to climb on our journey toward God? What if they represent important work that is to take place in our life? You know, in recovery circles people learn that anger and resentment and fear and guilt represent work that we have to do, and it's very honorable work. And I think grieving is the most important work that some of us do in our life, not only the grief of loved ones who have died, but there are many, many losses in our life that we have to grieve, and we can't bypass that process of grieving. We need to walk through it and be very gentle with ourself as we walk through it.
I want to close by doing what they did in the synagogue. Will the mourners please rise.
If you look around you, then, we have people in our midst who are doing very important work and who need our encouragement, our support, and our constant prayers, and who need from us the affirmation that what they're doing isn't just something to get over, but it's something very important to work through. Thank you, you can be seated now.
And as we usually do, I'm going to ask Jan to come up now, and we will read off those names of people who have died in the past year and ask someone from the family, as many as would like, to come and light a candle in their memory.
The names of people who died in the past year were read. Someone from the family came up and lit a candle in their memory.
All Souls Day
When I read that Gospel and the words, “I will not reject anyone who comes to me,” I was reminded of a little boy I met ten years ago. I don't know what's happened to him since. I was doing a funeral at a funeral home, and I was all prepared with what I was going to do. But somebody came to me right before the funeral and pointed out this little boy, and they said, "He is very worried because his grandmother didn't go to church, and he is afraid that she won't go to heaven."
So I quickly readjusted my thoughts and I read this Gospel. And I just looked at him and I said, "Jesus said in the Gospel today and listen to what he said 'I will not reject anyone who comes to me.' Do you believe that?"
Well, I want to just ask all of you that same question today. Hear again the words of Jesus. "Everyone whom the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me. Indeed, this is God's will, that I lose nothing that he has given me." Do you believe that? Amen. And I think it's always important that we frame things like grieving in that faith.
And now I want to give the homily I give every year on All Souls day. I begin with this same memory. It must be 26 or 27 years ago now, I remember going to a Hanukkah service at Temple Beth El Zedeck, and I noticed that during the course of the service, the Cantor or lector or whoever he was, said several times, "Will the mourners please rise," and then they would say a prayer over them.
That happened several times during the service, so I turned to Sandy Sasso, the Rabbi, and I said, "Sandy, who is a mourner?"
And she said, "Well, in our tradition we consider someone a mourner for a full year after the death of a loved one, and every year thereafter on the anniversary of that death."
I also noticed, by the way, they had names on the wall with lights next to those names, and some of those names would be lit. I thought, "What a beautiful tradition, and how different it is from us."
I was talking to somebody just a couple weeks week ago who felt guilty because she were still grieving, and who was saying to herself, "I know I ought to be over this."
Unfortunately sometimes people treat people that way. When someone dies everybody is around you and close to you, but as time goes on, people begin thinking, "Why don't they get over it?" And you know, underlying that is something of an attitude I think we have. Let me throw it out and see if you agree with me. We think of ourself as this self enclosed fortress like thing that's invaded by unwanted feelings, feelings like grief or anger or sadness or, well, you can go on. Does it fit? Do we think we've been invaded by these feelings and we try to get rid of them, or we try to push them away, or we throw up the walls to protect ourselves from them and keep them out?
What if these feelings are ladders that are thrown out for us to climb on our journey toward God? What if they represent important work that is to take place in our life? You know, in recovery circles people learn that anger and resentment and fear and guilt represent work that we have to do, and it's very honorable work. And I think grieving is the most important work that some of us do in our life, not only the grief of loved ones who have died, but there are many, many losses in our life that we have to grieve, and we can't bypass that process of grieving. We need to walk through it and be very gentle with ourself as we walk through it.
I want to close by doing what they did in the synagogue. Will the mourners please rise.
If you look around you, then, we have people in our midst who are doing very important work and who need our encouragement, our support, and our constant prayers, and who need from us the affirmation that what they're doing isn't just something to get over, but it's something very important to work through. Thank you, you can be seated now.
And as we usually do, I'm going to ask Jan to come up now, and we will read off those names of people who have died in the past year and ask someone from the family, as many as would like, to come and light a candle in their memory.
The names of people who died in the past year were read. Someone from the family came up and lit a candle in their memory.
Labels: Homilies
posted by Fr. Larry Voelker at
9:37 AM
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