At our prayer group's silver jubilee celebration last night, I found myself thinking about the many people who have passed in our midst over the past quarter-century. Some left for theological reasons, even leaving the Church for a home where they felt they could worship with less judgment of their evangelistic bent or find a closer adherence to their understanding and interpretation of Scripture; some of these were with us at the very beginning.
Most, including most of these, have simply gone on to wherever God has since planted them, throughout the country and, in some cases, around the world. We were blessed by their presence, and they grew with us in the ways that they were supposed to before going to be planted in their current communities, sometimes with multiple stops between here and there.
A few have gone home for eternity, where they participate fully in the union of which we who walk in this world have gotten only the first taste.
Last night I thought of many of them as we prayed, interceding for them and asking them to pray for us, too, aware in a special way that the Holy Spirit unites all of us in a way that we rarely glimpse and never fully grasp in this world. We are so rarely aware that we celebrate each Eucharist in communion with all those who have ever partaken from the heavenly banquet, either in this world or the one that awaits us. That isn't quite accurate, though: we await it, for we are bound by time; they participate fully with us as they are never again so restricted!
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