All souls/all saints day reading

Remembrance helps us hold dear and carry forward the legacy of our predecessors on All Souls/Saints Day and everyday.

 

One:

Eternal God, make us this day to remember the unseen cloud of witnesses who compass us about: Those who in every age and generation witnessed to their faith in life and in death;

Many:

Those who by their courage and their sacrifice won for us the freedom and the liberty we enjoy; Those who served their fellow men at the cost of pain, of persecution, and of death;

One:

Those for whom all the trumpets sounded as they passed over to the other side;

Those whom we have loved and who have gone to be with you, and whose names are written on our hearts.

Many:

Help us to walk worthily of those in whose unseen presence

life is lived.

Help us to have in our lives

Their courage in danger;

Their steadfastness in trial;

One:

Their perseverance in difficulty;

Their loyalty when loyalty is costly;

Their love which nothing can change;

Their joy which nothing can take away.

Many:

So grant to us in your good time to share with them the

blessedness of your nearer presence, that we also may come

to that life,

where all the questions are answered;

where all the tears are wiped away:

One:

Where we shall meet again, never to be separated from

them, those whom we have loved and lost awhile.

Where we shall be forever with our Lord.

Many:

So grant to us in this life never to forget those who have gone before, so that in the life to come we may share their blessedness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

All:

Amen.

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By Dilys Brooks, Associate Chaplain Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA, Center for Women Clergy, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI. Reprinted with permission from the The African American Lectionary.

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