From the Rev Liz Dawes November 2023

Rev Liz Dawes

Curate, Great Yarmouth Parrish

November is the time in the churches calendar when we enter a kind of mini-season. Our prayer book, Common Worship, celebrates the season from All Saints to Advent as a season of Remembrance. On All Saints Day, the 1st November, we remember men and women, who throughout the ages, showed that God was powerfully at work in them and the following day we celebrate the lives of those we loved who have died and we remember all that they gave to us through their love, friendship, and care. It is in this little season of the church that we also have Remembrance Sunday, when we remember those who have given their lives for others in times of conflict, in two world wars and in all conflicts since. We are in a time of thinking about those we have loved but see no longer and giving thanks for their lives
 
Being a Christian doesn’t lessen the pain of losing someone we love but it gives us the hope that they will live on after death and that we might be reunited with them in some way when we die. It’s hard to know exactly what heaven will be like and I’m sure we all have our own ideas. In John’s gospel Jesus says “In my Father’s house there are many rooms” - there is lots of space - where he prepares a place for us in heaven. It’s a glimpse of what heaven might be like. And so, we can look for comfort in the hope that our loved ones live on and that we might one day join them. The Dominican Friar and Catholic Priest, Bede Jarrett expresses this beautifully in these few verses

 We give them back to you, O Lord,
who first gave them to us;
and as you did not lose them in the giving,
so we do not lose them in the return

And while you prepare a place for us,
as you have promised,
prepare us also for that happy place;
that where you are we may be also,
with those we have loved, forever

Revd Liz

photos courtesy of Great Yarmouth Parish

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