This year, as we move through Halloween, All Saints, and All Souls, I am thinking of those who have lost beloved ones since this time last year. I also want to lift up those who have known grief for many years. I am grateful that the sacred calendar provides days to make space to honor, lament, remember, and radiate love for our beloved ones who are no longer here but who continue to journey on with us. This blessing is for you.
a blessing for the day we mourn our dead
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.
God have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Spirit have mercy.
Child, God is holding you. in life, and in death.
You are loved.
By: Kate Bowler