Hello, Friends!
   Sunday is All Saints Day, when we give thanks as we remember those whose lives have blessed and informed ours.
    These prayers are taken from the Service of Death and Resurrection of our tradition.  I offer them here, so we can spend a bit of time this week in grateful prayer and thoughtful reflection—especially about our sense of what the Saints would have us do, and be, in their honor.

               Prayer of Thanksgiving

     Eternal God, we praise you for the great company of all those who have finished their course in faith and now rest from their labor.  We praise you for those dear to us whom we name in our hearts before you.
     To all of these, grant your peace.
Let perpetual light shine upon them;
and help us so to believe where we have not yet seen, that your presence may lead us through our years, and bring us at last with them into the joy of your home not made with hands but eternal in the heavens;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

  Prayer of Commendation
     Eternal God, you have shared with us the lives of those we remember.
Before they were ours, they are yours.
For all they have given to us to make us what we are, for that of them which lives and grows in each of us, and for their lives that in your love will never end, we give you thanks.
….Draw those of us who remain in this life closer to one another, make us faithful to serve one another, and give us to know that peace and joy which is eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.
      I hope you’ll spend a bit of your own time in prayerful, grateful reflection this week, and I hope you’ll bring your remembrances to worship this Sunday.
      I look forward to worshiping with you, in the company of our remembered Saints, this Sunday, and all our days to come.
   
Shalom,
Sarah