For All the Saints . . .

Yesterday was All Saints Day, and as has become a custom in our church, we commemorated those people who had been buried from the parish in the last year.  In past years we may not have been familiar with any of them, sometimes we knew one or two. This year in addition to the few whose names we recognized or whose faces we knew, there were five close friends and family members whose funerals we attended here at St. Ambrose. The families of the deceased were invited to light candles from the Easter candle and place them on the altar. We were also invited to place candles for those others who were buried in other parts of the city or country. As we added them up, we realized we had lost five other relatives and friends in the last twelve months.

I suppose this is a pattern that will only increase as we age and one of these days there will be candles placed on the altar for us. But in the meantime, farewell to our friends and relatives Dan, Bob, Barbara, Beverly, Leona, Lynne, Betty, Earl, Jim and Vickie.

"Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come."