All Saints 2023

Blessed becomes Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Blessed becomes let's pray together.

Almighty God.

Unto whom all hearts are all desires, from whom no secrets are hid.

Cleanse the lots of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit that we may perfectly love thee and worthily magnify thy holy name through Christ.

Let us pray.

Almighty God, you fit together your elect in one communion and fellowship, the mystical body of your Son, Christ our Lord.

Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints and all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God in glory everlasting.

Amen.

After being seated, our children are invited to a children's chapel with Mr.

Alexander.

A reading from Revelation.

After this, I of John looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count.

From every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the land, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.

They cried out in a loud voice, saying, Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb.

And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and before living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, saying, Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever.

Amen.

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, Who are these robed in white, and where have they come from?

I said to him, Sir, you are the only one who knows.

And he said to me, These are they who have come out of the great ordeal.

They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.

For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple.

And the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.

They will hunger no more and thirst no more.

The sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat.

For the lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of water and life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

The word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

The psalm of Psalm 134, we will read responsibly by the half verse.

At all times I will bless the Lord prayer.

I will glory in the Lord, and the heart here and returns.

Proclaim with me the greatness of the Lord.

I sought the Lord who answered me and delivered me out of all my terror.

Look upon the Lord and be radiant, and I face the shame.

I called in my affliction and the Lord heard me.

And I say, The angel of the Lord encompasses the God fearing, and the Lord will deliver them.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Happier, trust in the Lord.

Fear the Lord, your holy ones, for those who are God fearing lack nothing.

The young lions lack and suffer hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack nothing that is good.

The Lord ransoms the life of those chosen to serve.

And that is what we are.

The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

Beloved, we are God's children now.

And what we will be has not yet been revealed.

What we do know is this that when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is, and all who have this hope in him purify themselves just as he is pure.

The word of the Lord is God.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.

Then he began to speak and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you, for the people revile you and persecute you, and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad.

For your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The gospel of the Lord.

Remembering the departed.

And sometimes I think we fall into the trap of thinking that remembering is sort of like, I forgot where I put my keys, and then now I know where I put my keys.

I remembered it.

And there's some truth to that, but I would like to invite you to consider the deeper sense of the word.

The opposite of remembering is dismembering.

When we remember somebody, it's like we've lost a limb and reattached it.

So today is one of those days when we're invited to remember the saints.

Dead and living.

And that's important that we hear both ends, the living and the dead.

And of course, this is your annual reminder: who are the saints?

Well, as the song, so uh pivotally put, right?

They are folk like you and me.

But quite honestly, I think we're all too often prepared to relegate sainthood to a category that is unreachable.

Saints are folks that don't make mistakes, which means you never really knew them.

This is why I think it's easy we call St.

Francis and St.

Christopher and St.

Michael saints, because we didn't know them.

But I guarantee you, if you did, they would annoy the heck out of you.

Because they're people like you and me, and we're annoying sometimes.

Sometimes we look at the word saint and we say, they must have perfect piety.

They must be the kind of folks that tithe and fast and do all their prayers, and they do it with meaning every time.

Well, I've got good news for you.

It is not saints in Scripture.

It's going to sound like bad news for a second, but the word saints simply means holy ones.

And holy simply means set apart.

If you grew up, if you're under the age of 50, you probably grew up in a home that had porcelain ware that you used at Christmas or Thanksgiving because those dishes were set apart.

Honestly, because you didn't want to wash them by hand every meal either.

So you set them apart for a particular meal to make it special, and so saints are people who are set apart to make other people special.

And when Paul writes letters in a Christian New Testament, he doesn't write them to some of the saints in Ephesus.

He writes them to all of the saints in Ephesus, which we presume to be everybody who heard the letter, even if they weren't in what Paul wished they were.

So we get this annual reminder that you are a saint.

And if we take our faith seriously, so is that person at your office who drives you and put us differently from you.

Simply put, as Paul reminds us, as John reminds us today, that we are children of God.

All of us we sometimes we can't see it, and that doesn't mean it's not true.

Now we get a different reading cycle every year on a three-year basis.

Next year, because it's year B, you'll get to hear the letter from the Hebrews that recites a litany of saints that include all these famous people that if you've been in church, you've probably heard of before.

Abraham and Jacob and King David and King Solomon and even obscure people like Jephthah.

As I mentioned, sometimes we like to almost angilify these folks.

But the good news for you is that they were murderers and rapists and adulterers and thieves, and they were still saints.

Which means not only is there hope for you and me, it reminds us that if we can't see somebody's sainthood, it is not God's problem, it's ours.

And so we have this constant invitation when we're irritated to zoom in.

Because if we look a little closer, we might indeed find one way, and all it takes is one where somebody points us to God.

And if we are overimpressed with somebody's piety, we might zoom out and remind ourselves that holy people are annoying sometimes.

And if we can't see it, it's because we're not looking.

Nothing wrong with being annoying.

Nothing wrong with being quirky.

It doesn't disqualify you from being a saint.

It makes you quirky.

The gospel uses different language today.

The gospel takes us back to the Beatitudes in which Jesus describes these interesting sort of uh traits.

And it's interesting.

Jesus doesn't say the meek will be happy one day.

Jesus says the meek are already happy.

The poor in spirit are already happy.

Poor in spirit.

Now, you probably heard my take on this earlier in the year, but I would like to remind you a bit about it in the context of the saints.

Poor in spirit.

You know, in the Bible, spirit is just moving air.

More often than not, it's breath, as often as it is wind.

Sometimes we say it's that part of ourselves that's invisible to the eye.

What does it mean to be poor in spirit?

I don't know.

But I think it means I'm not full of hot air.

Blessed are people who are not full of hot air because they might actually be willing to listen.

Blessed are people who aren't already full of themselves because they can make room for you or somebody else.

What do saints do?

They make room for you or somebody else.

Saints are people, as I mentioned, who in a moment point somebody to God.

And the language we get in the letter to the Galatians, we didn't read it today, but the language we get is that when we point somebody to God, we are doing something like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control.

And what our faith suggests to us is that those moments do not die with us, they outlast us.

When we do things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control, they infinitely expand our universe, even as our universe is infinitely expanded.

Notice that Beatitudes don't say blessed are the peace.

Being a peacekeeper sounds a little bit like, well, somebody with a gun that says, you do it my way, and we'll keep the peace.

No, uh, blessed are the peacemakers.

Blessed are the people who dare say, what if we all put our arms down figuratively or literally and make peace?

That could be in Ukraine.

That could be in Jerusalem.

That could be at your Thanksgiving table this year.

Blessed are the people who make peace.

Blessed are people who hunger and thirst for righteousness, which we often forget is just a synonym for God's version of justice.

Blessed are people who hunger for God's version of justice.

Even if they only do it one day a week.

We're invited to zoom in on the saints and remember, not just others.

We're invited to remember that we are called to wear that mantle in God's name.

And I think we're reminded of the month of November to do this with gratitude because, as I once heard Barack Obama say, we like to think that we're self-made people because we pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and we go and we make our businesses and they profit, but that road we took, we didn't build that road.

You didn't build that.

You rely on the work of saints to get you where you're going.

You rely on saints to sit in the seats you're sitting in.

Maybe they didn't do anything else in their life but give you that seat, which hopefully is pointing you to God today.

By the way, if the sermon doesn't work, the windows are pretty.

There's something in the room that can point you to God, and somebody even put their name on that seat.

Because they wanted you to know for one moment, for one moment, they wanted to point you to God.

We remember those people.

Because the scriptures say there's a big cloud of them.

We're surrounded by a cloud, living and dead.

The other language we get from Revelation is that the saints are people who did the great ordeal.

Sometimes we think saints are people who withstood persecution.

But look, when John wrote that letter, there wasn't any great ordeal.

There was no great ordeal other than life.

Because life is short.

And we don't have long to gladden the road of those who travel with us.

Saints are folks who make haste to be kind.

The saints are folks who make haste to travel with you.

This is our invitation to celebrate who's gone before us, to celebrate who's along the ride with us, and if we dare to celebrate who God's made us to be.

Now, look, sainthood looks really different.

So I've given you some great classic examples, but I want to give you two much more mundane ones, and you may not even like them.

But I'm going to tell you the saintliest moment for my mentoring priest who did a lot of things for me, and he was good at a lot of things.

He was a great preacher, he had really good vision, he was committed to justice.

But I'd tell you the one story for me, and I maybe have told you this before.

It bears repeating.

His quintessential moment was at a party at the diocesan offices.

We were having a goodbye meal for a number of clergy who were transferring out of the diocese or who were retiring.

I think there were four of them at the time, and when there's only 46 of you, four feels like a lot.

So there was this big luncheon, and there were all of these steam wells, and it was really clear that if you didn't get in line first, you were going to be standing in line a long time.

So the bishop went to pray for the meal.

And of course, what all of us good priests did?

We bowed our heads.

And that was when Edward went through the food line.

During the bishop's prayer.

And you could hear him clanging the steam wells, and you could hear him filling his plates, and me, his little associates, said, Shh, what are you doing?

The bishop was praying.

And his response is, he's just a person.

And I'm hungry.

Now, you may say that sounds rather immature, Mike, but I'll tell you, Edward Harrison was comfortable in his own skin.

And he reminded me that holy people have real physical needs.

Sometimes we think holy people don't need anything.

Oh, I can forego that.

I don't need to rest.

I can just keep working.

No, holy people have bodies.

Bodies get hungry.

Bodies need to sit down.

Sometimes manners get in the way of us fulfilling our needs.

Now, look, obviously that's not the whole gospel, but I'll tell you, that story, that's who the man was.

He was himself at home in shopping in front of the bishop, in front of the church.

We have a word for that in English.

It's called integrity.

Like it or not, the man had integrity because he was the same person regardless of who he was around, and that's a saint.

And you know, sometimes we neglect some of our more influential saints because they do drive us nuts, like they're our kids.

I got a kid that's real slow.

All of his faculties are fine.

I just mean he takes a long time doing stuff.

Drives me crazy.

And of course, his gift, right, is that he'll make room for people that I've already walked by because I'm in such a hurry.

Drive me crazy when he's trying to take a test.

Or get a job.

Or keep a job.

But what a compelling moment of grace that he will make time for anybody.

Especially if they're not important.

Especially if they're not important.

That points me to God every time.

And I hope we'll also remember that God isn't worried whether you are saints or Christian or not, because God's not Christian either.

And that some of the most influential saints in my life are Muslim, Jewish, and believe in nothing.

And that does not restrain them from being one of God's beloved children or from pointing me to what holiness looks like in everyday life.

Does it not restrain them?

Some of us in the room worry about our kids because we raise them in church and they don't go anywhere.

This is a good reminder: God is not worried about your kids.

God delights in your children and loves them.

And maybe they'll find this way of faith that matters to you.

Maybe not.

You gave them the choice.

And that's what makes you a saint.

You gave them the choice.

They know it's there, they can come back when they're ready.

Sometimes we fret because we didn't give them enough.

You gave them roots, and you gave them wings so they could leave.

But they can also fly back to the roots.

You gave them.

We don't have to put such a high premium on sainthood that nobody gets to be one.

Quite the opposite.

Saints are people who do the most ordinary things, and in doing them, God shows up.

And I think we all get that the best saints don't even have to talk.

They just show up.

I guess Vince Lombardi said that 90% of winning is showing up.

But I think 100% of sainthood is showing up.

Sometimes we use words the wrong way.

We say, my mother was so stubborn.

My mother was stubborn.

But actually, uh, somebody's only stubborn if we don't like what they were doing.

If we do like what we're doing, we call that perseverance.

So saints are people who stubbornly persevere.

Yeah?

So I don't know who's in your cloud.

I don't know who's in your cloud.

Of witnesses, but I know you're in God's cloud of witnesses.

Not only do we celebrate that, we take that mantle on.

It is a holy mantle to bear to the world, and we get to do it in the smallest, the most insignificant moments.

That's when we turn the hands of the world into the saints in heaven and on earth.

Please join me as we pray our faith in the words of the Nicene Free.

We believe in one God, Father, and all that is to be all the God of God, eternal God of the Father, the God for God, the After God, Truth of God, the God, the God of the Father.

We could be online.

Sometimes the priest makes a mistake.

The prayers of the people are in Eucharistic prayer D, which we'll be doing today.

So now instead of the prayers of the people that are in your bulletin, I'm going to invite us to humbly confess our sins against God and our neighbor.

What are our hearts there?

And what has become for us to be higher of God.

Open to us the future in which you have entertained.

And grant us grace to grow more and more in your life.

Through Jesus Christ, the light of the world.

Amen.

The Almighty and compassionate Lord grant you absolution and remission of all your sin.

True repentance, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you, and I invite you to stand as you're able, being justified by God.

Possibly the greatest saint of all.

Who forgives us even when we don't feel like it.

That seems pretty saintly.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

If you're new to us or haven't done this before, there are some little cards out there in the room right behind what we're sitting in.

We call it an Artex.

These little cards say welcome, and we'd be tremendously grateful if you go one out and put it in a little blue basket so that we have a record of your visit.

And if you're new to us, we're doing things a little bit different today.

I'm just going to talk about a few of those because even though some elements of a service are not our tradition, they are part of our tradition.

So, the funny hat.

It's the only beretta allowed in the building.

This is what it's called.

And during the Reformation, it was a sign that the priest was illiterate.

Because many clergy were not.

Hocus pocus?

Hocus pocus?

That's what an illiterate priest said when they were supposed to say hocus corpus mail.

So when you can't read, you make stuff up.

Magic words, right?

We're supposed to pick it up every time we say Jesus Christ.

So not Jesus or Christ, but Jesus Christ as a sign of respect.

Not my tradition.

It's in our tradition.

This is a napkin.

It's called a manipul.

It's too fancy to wipe your mouth, but that used to be what we do at communion.

We used to use a maniple to wipe your mouth.

Not my tradition, but the former priest bought them, so I wear them.

We don't use incense every week, but you know the ancient world?

It's stunk.

Like bath.

You ever been into a country that just stunk?

Or down there on a particular day or by the water treatment facility, right?

That's why we use incense because it invites us to a different smell.

You may or may not be pleased with it, I get it.

But it was a sign of God's presence is somehow different, and of course it rises just like our prayers and our saints do, right?

So we use these things from time to time to represent the wist of the Anglican heritage, knowing that it doesn't appeal to everybody, that's okay.

But it's nice to remember there's options, right?

Um, okay, a few things I want to call to your attention.

It's always good to look back just for a second.

So yesterday, we had more people at our food distribution than we've had in three years.

465 people were fed in about 90 minutes, each one taking about 50 pounds worth of fresh produce.

This is an amazing ministry, particularly because one in five Houstonians suffers from food insecurity, according to the Houston Food Bank.

So one out of every five people is food insecure, and of those one in five, two-thirds of them regularly has to choose between food and utilities, medical care, and transportation.

That's in our neighborhood too.

So thank you for supporting this with your prayers, with your parking lot, with your hands.

The only thing we got to do yesterday, and huge thanks to Herdmeyer for organizing the whole thing.

Lewis fed us.

A lot of people were involved in a parish workday where we planted 20 trees, we uh sodd the labyrinth and leveled it out, and a few other projects.

Uh and Heard worked on this for a couple of weeks so that when people got here, there'd be stuff to do.

Uh so lovely, lovely work day.

Grounds look really great.

And thank you for making the place as beautiful outwardly as I find it to be inwardly.

No joke there.

Uh, a couple other things uh coming up.

So Lila Anderson is in the hallway today.

She is trying to solicit you to be part of a group that is in your best interest called Foyers.

Foyers is a dinner group, and don't think fancy.

Think of about four pot bucks a year that eight people are involved in.

Some of our Foyers groups meet in a park or some of them meet in a home.

It doesn't have to be fancy.

It's just an opportunity to share a meal with people you may or may not know and get to know them.

It's a real low threshold.

You don't even have to cook if you don't want to.

And you don't have to be within your house if you don't want to, but you can.

So I just commend this to you.

These groups are forming now and they'll start in January, and they kind of run themselves maybe four times a year.

And some people at this church have made some of the best friends in their life through a four-year script, which is really a lovely thing.

So Viola's out there taking names.

Um, other thing I'd like to commend to you is that a week from Tuesday, that'll be November the 14th, we're having a commissioning service for Kathy Reinhold.

She's been hired by the diocese to be the area missioner in our convocation, which is really connecting lay people and deepening the service they're able to offer their community.

Like our food distribution for people that don't do that, if that makes sense.

And helping us figure out how to do not more, but to do better at what it is we do.

So Kathy's gonna be has already started that job.

We had to move her commissioning service because somebody got COVID, but now everybody seems good.

So we're gonna have this service a week from Tuesday at 7 p.m.

It'll be a Eucharist here.

Uh, and it's a different service, it is.

So if you're interested in seeing some of the range of the Episcopal tradition, Tuesday, November the 14th at 7 p.m.

Um, it's still pledge season.

So, reminder to you that pledge cards are out.

We mail them out.

I have a few out there in the North X, if you didn't get one and would like one, and uh, we are going to ask God to bless those pledges in two weeks.

So I would really like for you to turn them in in the next two weeks so that we can physically ask God to bless what you put down on that paper, knowing that God can do more than we can ask or imagine.

Uh, so if you don't know what I'm talking about, I'd be happy to talk to you more about why we do that and the opportunity for our own piety in doing so.

Of course, it helps us make a budget, which we think is fiscally responsible, but not just of money.

It helps us budget where we're going to be in ministry because we do ask you to think about pledging toward ministry in the coming year, whether it's a food distribution or the altar guild or something we're not doing that we ought to be doing.

There's a write-up.

Y'all should offer blank.

We try to take that very seriously.

So, so again, um, we've got two weeks left to do that on November the 19th.

Um, it is the first Sunday in November.

So if you were born this fine month, I would like to invite you forward so that we can name your birthday and offer God's blessing on your next year.

Some months are all about quality, not quantity.

We get that.

Uh as you're making your way up, our tradition is we share our name, the day of our birth, and either where we were born, when we were born, or both of us.

Adele James, I was born in Tokyo, near Tokyo, Japan, in November 24th, 1963.

Uh Jim McGill.

Uh I was born in Dallas, Texas, and I was born uh on Thursday, November 2nd, which was this year also Thursday, November 2nd, and I was born in 1958.

They had children uh born in 1956 in Amarillo, Texas.

Okay.

Carol is November 28th, 1949, in Derby, Pennsylvania.

I'm a guest, but I'm also claiming that I love my birthday.

It's November 1st.

And I'm sorry, but I was born in 1948.

So well, let's pray for our birthdays.

Oh, in Bryan, Texas.

Okay.

Let's pray for our birthdays.

God, we know every year, every moment of our lives is firmly in your loving hands.

Look with continued favor, we pray on these your children as they begin another year.

Grant that they would continue to grow in wisdom and grace, and above all, strengthen their trust in your goodness and love all the days of their lives.

Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

You're married?

Getting another year into marriage is like amazing, isn't it?

Right?

I was I was lovely that one of our parishioners, who's been married 50 years, said there were a number of times we went to the house deciding who was going to get which piece of furniture.

You know, and uh yeah, I've done that.

So it's like amazing, right?

That we that we make this work is amazing.

So what we asked for is just your names, uh the date of your anniversary, and where you got here.

My name's Robert Walker and what Mike.

Oh, November the 6th.

41 years ago.

Well, let's uh offer our blessing.

Lord God, thank you for the gift of marriage whereby you reveal to us your undying love and perseverance for each and every one of us.

We pray that as Robert and Renata begin their 42nd year, and as they keep their vows, that their vows would indeed keep up.

We may come a sign to the world of the kind of love you have for each of us.

But more than that, God, we ask you would surprise them with new joy as they continue their journey as a cop.

Amen.

Continue to walk in life.

As Christ first loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.

This is the table not of the church, but of Jesus Christ.

It is made ready for those who love him and those who want to love him more, so come.

You who have much faith and you who have little.

You who have been here often and you who have not been for a long time or ever before.

You who have tried to follow and you who have failed, come.

Not because the church invites you, it is Christ.

And he invites you to meet him here.

Our service continues on page three hundred and seventy-two of your red prayer book.

Page three hundred and seventy-two be with you, I also let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is all right to be honest and prayers.

It is truly right to glorify you, Father, and you who give you thanks.

You alone are God living and true, dwelling in light inaccessible from before time and forever, fountain of life and source of all goodness.

You made all things and filled them with you who they are since, you created them to rejoice in the splendor of your ready hands.

Count the strong angels stand before you, to serve you who night and day, and beholding the glory of your presence, they offer you unceasing praise, joining with them and giving voice to every creature under heaven that we acclaim you and glorify your name as we sing.

Your mighty works reveal your wisdom and love.

You formed us in your own image, giving the whole world into our stewardship.

Obedience to you, our Creator, we might shepherd and serve all your creatures.

When our disobedience takes us far from you, you do not abandon us to the power of death.

In your mercy you come to our help so that seeking you we might find you.

Again and again you call us into covenant with you, and through the prophets you teach us to hope for salvation.

Father, you love the world so much that in the fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our Savior.

Incarnate by the Holy Spirit, born to the Virgin Mary, he lived as one of us, yet without sin.

To the poor, he proclaimed the good news of salvation, to prisoners' freedom, and the sorrowful joy.

To fulfill your purpose, Jesus gave himself up to death, and rising from the grave destroyed death and made the whole creation new.

And that we might live no longer for ourselves, but for the one who died and rose for us, God sent the Holy Spirit, God's own first gift for those who believed, to complete Jesus' work in the world, and bring to fulfillment the sanctification of all.

When the hour had come for him to be glorified by you, his heavenly Father, having loved his own who were in the world, Jesus loved them to the end.

At supper with them, he took bread.

And when he given thanks to you, he broke it, gave it to his disciples, and said, Taste.

This is my body which is given for you.

Do this for the remembrance of me.

After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine.

And when he had given thanks, he gave it to them and said, Drink this, all of you.

This is my blood of the renewed covenant which is shed for you and for all for the forgiveness of sin.

Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me.

Recalling Christ's death and his descent among the dead, proclaiming his resurrection and ascension to your right hand, awaiting his coming in glory and offering to you from the gifts you've given us, this bread and this cup.

We praise you and we bless you.

We praise you, we bless you.

We give thanks to you, and we pray to you, Lord our God.

Lord, we pray that in your goodness and mercy your Holy Spirit may descend upon us and upon these gifts, sanctifying them and showing them to be holy gifts for your holy people.

Bread of life and the cup of salvation, the body and blood of your Son, Jesus Christ.

Grant that all who share of this bread and cup may become one body and one spirit, a living sacrifice in Christ to the praise of your name.

Remember, Lord, your one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, redeemed by the love of your Christ.

Reveal its unity, guard its faith, and preserve it in peace.

Remember our bishops, Andy, Hector, Jeff, and Kay, Michael, our presiding bishop, and Justin, Archbishop of Canterbury, and all who minister in your church.

Remember all of your people, and those who seek your truth, and those whose faith is known to you alone.

The congregation is invited to name their own celebrations or petitions silently or aloud.

Remember all who have died in the peace of Christ.

Bring them into the place of eternal joy and light.

We seem to give them back to you, dear God, who gave them to us.

Yet as you did not lose them in giving, so we have not lost them by their return.

Not as the lover gives, but you give, O lover of souls.

What you give you do not take away, for what is yours is ours also.

Always if you are yours.

Life is eternal, love is immortal, death is only a horizon, and the horizon is nothing but the limit of our sight.

Lift us up, strong Son of God, that we may step further, cleanse our eyes that we may see more clearly, draw us closer to yourself, that we may know ourselves, nearer to our beloved who are with you.

And while you prepare a place for us, prepare us for the happy place that where they are and you are, we too may be remembering specifically the light you shone through Lee Peterson, Janice Blackman, Susie Gange, Ludanne Spencer, David Randall, Philip Morse, Joseph Bass, Janet Morgan, Lucille, Romero's, Wayne Krug, Rosemary Anderson, Jackie Reed, Herbert Skim Ingley, Benjamin Petty, Bobby Hart, Kenneth Williams, Betty and Norby Reed, Lou Ann Metzger, John Kroshner, Joshua Yellen, Grace Baker, Tom Acirno, Myrna Thompson, David Mindorf, Charles Suber, Shirley Herna, Lyle Covisto, Bruce Merriman, Jane Mueller, Pastor Frank Celestine Sr.

Linda Celestine, Buddy Villa Mark Johnson, I'll be like, I'm not sure.

And grant that we may find our own inheritance with all the saints who have found favor with you in ages past.

We praise you, and un with them, and give you glory through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Through Christ and with Christ and in Christ, all honor and glory are yours, Almighty God and fulfilled, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, whoever and ever.

Now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to pray.

Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

In the same and safe Jesus, as we should provide these are the gifts of God for you, the saints of God.

Grant us, Almighty God, that we may be refreshed and nourished by the sacraments which we have received, so as to be transformed into what we consume.

Through Christ our Lord.

Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses in heaven and on earth, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely.

And let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be upon you this day and remain with you always.

Amen.