Full disclosure at the outset, I'm not an Episcopalian. But I have spent a good chunk of my professional life (starting way back with my Master's thesis) studying them and their church, and doing so has surely shaped my own faith in a variety of ways.
As a result of all that work, I've got in my home library several different versions of the Book of Common Prayer. My favorite one, is a "pocket size" copy of the 1928 version (which in my mind remains the best version ever to come from the United States), printed in 1953, that once belonged to George M. Alexander, the Bishop of Upper South Carolina. Since I bought it at a used bookstore in Indiana, I really have no idea how it made its way up north. But here it now resides, and every now and I again, I pull it down and read a Morning Prayer or the appropriate Daily Office. It does my largely pietistic soul good to mix with a bit of the more liturgical aspects of the faith.
Tonight though, I got it out because we learned earlier today that a good friend of ours, who had been battling cancer had died. Looking for a little comfort, I turned to Bishop Alexander's Prayer Book, and eventually found my way to this passage:
"Most merciful Father, who hast been pleased to take unto thyself the soul of this thy servant; Grant to us who are still in our pilgrimage, and who walk as yet by faith, that having served thee with constancy on earth, we may be joined hereafter with they blessed saints in glory everlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
Perhaps those words and indeed, the news this morning of our friend's passing, was made all the more real because of a conversation I had with my son last night. We had a "boys dinner out" and during the course of our meal (bread sticks and pizza), I looked over at him and said that that moment was the best part of my day. He looked back, agreed, and then (as only a little boy can do) said that one day when he was a daddy, he was going to bring his son to Pizza Hut too.
His words made me smile (it was a "treasured up these things in your heart" kind of moment), but tonight they make me contemplative. My son is still to young perhaps to realize that we aren't promised tomorrow. We can hope for the future, but what lies ahead remains unknown to us. All we can do enjoy the time we have with each other now, and cherish the memories we have of the departed when their pilgrimage has come to an end. And pray that others will cherish our memory when it is our time to depart from this mortal life.
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