a blessing for the day we mourn our dead (All Saints’ Day)

O God, we have not been here before. Sorrows old and
new envelop us
as we grieve in this new pandemic reality,
without hugs and funerals, shared jokes and fresh tears,
and graveside picnics to place flowers for those long
departed.

God, give us comfort that is bigger than all this, and love
that is stronger than all this.

God have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Spirit have mercy.

Blessed are we who hold in our hearts
our beloved family and friends we have lost.
those who have loved so hard and endured so much,
whose earthly story has now been told.

O God, you alone know the whole of it.
You know their sufferings, their joys, their hopes,
their winding paths and every movement of their souls
and ours too, as our lives touched.

God have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Spirit have mercy.

Blessed are we who grieve it all,
the missteps and missed chances.
Take all our regrets into your great heart of love
and bear it away on wings of healing.

Restore our souls, even as you receive theirs,
and welcome them into that heavenly reality
where the old has gone, the new has come.
where there is no more death, or sorrow or crying or
pain,
but fullness of peace and unimaginable joy.

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.” —John 14: 27

God have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Spirit have mercy.

Child, God is holding you. In life, and in death. You are
loved.

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have
been fully known.” —1 Corinthians 13:12