Sermon for All Souls’ Remembering Service Sunday 2 November 2025

The vicar who trained me when I was a curate, used to start funeral sermons with these words to the bereaved family, ‘There are three things you need to do here today: you need to smile and even laugh, because of the good memories and the good times you shared; second, you need to cry or shed a tear, because of the love you felt for them, and possibly because of the painful memories too; and thirdly, you all have a job to do today, to entrust this precious soul into God’s care and God’s love from now on.’

He taught me to realise that grief is a kind of work that we all need to do. We need to hand over our departed loved ones to God, and this work takes time. No one can take away the sadness of death, however much faith we have or don’t have. Gathered here, with others who have been bereaved – some recently, some longer ago – the work of letting go can take months or years, and most of us are still learning to do it - which is why we are here today. Having said that, each of us has our own unique way of grieving. There is no right or wrong way to grieve the death of someone special. It is very personal, very individual. And yet coming here today, is a continuing sign of our friendship and gratitude for those we have lost. They are not forgotten.

We call them to mind, we listen to their names – not just in our hearts but in this holy space and in the context of worship. In a sense, God holds us together with them, in one mystery, one embrace, through the music and prayers of this service. The work of bereavement helps us into a new kind of relationship with the departed. Whatever our personal belief, I think all of us here share in a kind of faith, that the mystery of death is not a blank wall but rather a gateway, both for ourselves and for our loved ones. It calls out our trust, our readiness to believe in a new future beyond death. This service for All Souls offers us a way to express our continuing feelings and recall our precious memories. And yet it puts our personal griefs in the context of a larger mystery, that God has created us for life and in the life of Jesus, God shares our experience of suffering and loss.

However alone we feel in our grief, this service brings us together. Grief is universal – but so is hope. God weeps with us but also calls us to trust in his love and mercy. The words and music of the Requiem offer such a range of feeling – from awe, fear, despair, tenderness, hope, uncertainty and finally peace. We can find ourselves in any or all of its moods and movements. So this sort of service with its traditional pattern offers us structure – something to hold on to in the face of bereavement. Prayers that have been shaped over the centuries help us find a way to articulate our feelings of pride and thanksgiving, as well as our loneliness and hurt. We can allow the age-old words and music to hold us and help us, and we can draw strength from this even when the day to day of ordinary life seems daunting at times. In the work of grieving we do today, our grief is answered as we hear again the promises of Jesus in the Gospel that none who come to him will be turned away; we are reminded in the words of the liturgy that eternal light, rest and peace are realities to look forward to in the future that God offers to all, beyond this life. And we pray individually and together, within the prayer of the Church, that all souls departed may be aided on the great journey that lies ahead beyond death, into the fullness of God’s beauty and joy.

Here in this beautiful space, and through the services the Church offers, we come close once again to all those who join with us in worship and prayer: that great multitude beyond our sight who are praising God with us still, but upon another shore and in a greater light. As, a little later, we each light a candle, we remember that our light and love are held within God’s far bigger light and greater love. And as we find the courage to leave that candle here at the front, we are entrusting our loved ones and ourselves to God’s future once again, confident that they and we will all be held safe in God’s eternity and everlasting care.