Prayers of Commendation from the Church of England

O God, who brought us to birth,
and in whose arms we die,
in our grief and shock contain and comfort us;
embrace us with your love,
give us hope in our confusion
and grace to let go into new life;
through Jesus Christ.
All Amen.

These or other prayers may follow

Lord, we come into your presence to remember N
and to seek your comfort,
for we know that nothing can separate us from your love
and that you support us in our sorrow.
We are sure that the souls of the righteous are with you
and that nothing can harm them.
Although they have died they are in peace.
Give us your strength to rejoice
that you have taken N to be with yourself
where he/she shall no more be in need.
May we find life and peace and perfect joy with him/her in your presence;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
All Amen.

God of all consolation,
in your unending love and mercy
you turn the darkness of death
into the dawn of new life.
Your Son, by dying for us, conquered death
and, by rising again, restored to us eternal life.
May we then go forward eagerly to meet our redeemer
and, after our life on earth,
be reunited with all our brothers and sisters
in that place where every tear is wiped away
and all things are made new;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
All Amen.

Lord, be with us as we open the door.
Come in with us, go out with us.
Do not sleep when we sleep,
but watch over us, protect us and keep us safe,
our only helper and maker.
All Amen.

Sabbath 1998, I

Whatever happens,
those who have learned
to love one another
have made their way
to the lasting world
and will not leave,
whatever happens.


-- Wendell Berry (1934- ), American poet, novelist, essayist, farmer, and agrarian philosopher

Scripture reference: 1 John 3:16-24, Easter 4B

A poem of farewell

What is left to say?

All the large words
have been spoken.

I’d take one of the
smallest words, like love,
wrap it in a warm breath,
tie it in a knot of flax,
and leave it, nonchalantly
on your papers.

A small green leaf
among the river stones.

Don’t throw it out
by accident, or crush it.
Put it in your pocket
where its touch
might sometimes
warm your fingers.

-- Adrienne Jansen (1947- ) New Zealand teacher, editor, and poet 

We Will Remember

When we are weary and in need of strength
When we are lost and sick at heart,
We remember him.

When we have a joy we crave to share
When we have decisions that are difficult to make
When we have achievements that are based on his
We remember him.

At the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter
At the opening of the buds and in the rebirth of spring,
We remember him.

At the blueness of the skies and in the warmth of summer
At the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn,
We remember him.

At the rising of the sun and at its setting
We remember him.

As long as we live, he too will live
For he is now a part of us,
As we remember him.

--from the Yizkor (May God Remember) service (Jewish memorial service), explained at My Jewish Learning. Prayer originally found at Eat Pray Love Liturgy.

Invitation to Communion based on Matthew 11:28-29

Jesus said,‘Come to me, all who are weary
and whose load is heavy;
I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me,
for I am gentle and humble-hearted;
and you will find rest for your souls.’
(Matthew 11:28-29)

-- from Common Order 1994, Church of Scotland (Presbyterian)

On the Beach at Night

On the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.

Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter,
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.

From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.

Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears,
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,
Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,
The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.

Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?

Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.

--Walt Whitman (1819-1892), one of America's pre-eminent poets, printer, teacher, editor and clerk whose innovations and subject matter both shocked and influenced the writing scene of his lifetime to today.

Parta Quies

Good-night; ensured release,
Imperishable peace,
   Have these for yours,
While sea abides, and land,
And earth’s foundations stand,
   And heaven endures.

When earth’s foundations flee,
Nor sky nor land nor sea
   At all is found,
Content you, let them burn:
It is not your concern;
   Sleep on, sleep sound.

– A. E.  Housman (1859-1936), English Romantic poet and professor of Latin at Cambridge

Afterwards

When the Present has slashed its postern behind my tremulous stay,
   And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,
   ‘He was a man who used to notice such things’?

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid’s soundless blink,
   The dew-fall hawk comes crossing the shades to alight
Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,
   ‘To him this must have been a familiar sight.’

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,
   When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,
One may say, ‘He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,
   But he could do little for them; And now he is gone.’

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,
   Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,
Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,
   ‘He was the one who had an eye for such mysteries’?

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom,
   And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,
Till they rise again, as they were a new bell’s boom,
   ‘He hears it not now, but used to notice such things’?

--Thomas Hardy (1840-1924), English novelist and poet

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
     And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
     The breath goes now, and some say, No:

So let us melt, and make no noise,
     No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
     To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,
     Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
     Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
     (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
     Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
     That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
     Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
     Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
     Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
     As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
     To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the center sit,
     Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
     Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
     And makes me end where I begun.

-- John Donne (1572-1631), Anglican priest, poet, essayist, Dean of St. Paul's in London, and founder of the Metaphysical Poets, whose feast day is today.

What I Said At Her Service

When we pray to love God perfectly,
surely we do not mean only.

(Lord, see how well I have done.)

-- Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet, teacher, and writer, from Thirst: Poems, 2006

Life

I made a posie, while the day ran by:
Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie
My life within this band.
But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they
By noon most cunningly did steal away,
And withered in my hand.

My hand was next to them, and then my heart:
I took, without more thinking, in good part
Time’s gentle admonition;
Who did so sweetly death’s sad taste convey,
Making my mind to smell my fatal day;
Yet sugaring the suspicion.

Farewell dear flowers, sweetly your time ye spent,
Fit, while ye lived, for smell or ornament,
And after death for cures,
I follow straight without complaints or grief,
Since if my scent be good, I care not if
It be as short as yours.

--George Herbert (1593-1633), English priest and poet

Endymion (A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever)

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

--John Keats (1795-1821)

Fidele's Dirge

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o’ the great,
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning-flash
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finish’d joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renowned be thy grave!

--William Shakespeare (1564-1616), from Cymbeline, Act IV, Scene 2

Our Revels Now Are Ended

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

--William Shakespeare (1564-1616), from The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1

Epitaph on a Friend

An honest man here lies at rest,
The friend of man, the friend of truth,
The friend of age, the guide of youth;
Few hearts like his, with virtue warm’d,
Few heads with knowledge so inform’d;
If there’s another world, he lives in bliss;
If there is none, he made the best of this.

--Robert Burns (1759-1796)