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Today is All Souls’ Day. We have a service of Holy Communion at 12 Noon in our Chancel to mark this occasion. All Souls’ directly follows All Saint’s Day and is an opportunity for Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholic churches to commemorate ‘the faithful departed.’ But what does this really mean? Who are the faithful departed and where have they gone? Traditionally people would pray for souls of people in Purgatory, in which those who have died atone for their less grave sins before being granted the vision of God. Through prayer these souls would be helped on their journey to heaven.
No doubt many today will have a very different theology than this one and their focus will be on Christ’s passion and an assurance of heaven with or without prayers. For others it will be a chance to simply remember their loved ones before God and to give thanks for their lives. Irrespective of the particular content or tone of our prayers today we can’t help but ponder on what is next. What or when is heaven? Is there an afterlife or is this all we have? If there is something beyond death is it a resurrection of our body? Even within our own community we hold multiple views on this.
I was intrigued by author Margaret Drabble’s double-page piece on this topic in Guardian Review at the weekend. She says, “In 21st-century Christian countries, orthodox religious services still routinely profess faith in the resurrection of the body. Painting and poetry and mythology offer us visions of heaven and hell, some horrific, and some, like Stanley Spencer’s, reassuring and comforting. But I’ve always suspected that most of us, even in the pious, priest-dominated Middle Ages, didn’t really believe what we said we believed.”
Drabble goes on to discuss how this impacts our experience of growing old and fearing old age as much as death. She asks how long we want to live for especially as many people today will have a life expectancy of well over one hundred. In those in their twenties can expect to live until 115. My own views on life beyond death require more lines than our weekly Epistle permits. And many would probably call them old fashioned. What I will say, is that I’m just as interested in our life ‘before life’ as much as what is after. And I often revert to the Psalms more than St Paul’s teaching on heaven: “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? (Ps 139), “the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting” (Ps 103).
An invitation for humans to commune with God that abruptly ends with no further communication after a few – or even a hundred - years does not match with my sense of the expanse and generosity of God, described within the Christian narrative, and the one from my own personal experience. All Souls’ for me is less about the ‘Faithful’ aspect of the Departed and more about the faithfulness of the eternal God.
The Revd Alan Ramsey
Acting Priest-in-charge
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| | Services
—TODAY 12PM All Souls Eucharist All welcome —
Tuesdays & Thursdays at 12.15pm
Lunchtime Eucharists —
Sunday 6th November All Saints' Day 9.30am - Family Service
10.30am - Choral Eucharist & University Sermon
William Byrd, Gaudeamus omnes in Domino
Joseph Haydn, Missa brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo
William Byrd, Justorum animae
Preacher - Prof Alister McGrath
Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford
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| | | | | Michaelmas Lunches
We have a series of lunches in the Old Library during Michaelmas Term. The last one is on 20th November after the main morning service.
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| | Wired:
Dr Michael Burdett has been discussing our series on Radio Oxford. Click here to listen http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04c052x (1:39:30). Join us to hear Michael in person Thursday evening, in the Vaults, when he will be discussing forming the virtual self.
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| | Forthcoming Concerts & Other Events
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Check out our website and Facebook pages.
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| | Wired: technology's ethical questions
Will a robot do your job? Will technology change our understanding of human identity? How does the Internet change our behaviour? How does technology change conflict? What technology should we not develop?
Over three evenings in Michaelmas Term we will present a discussion on how technology is revolutionising our world and what impact it might have, and consider how we might respond in terms of ethics. Each evening will include a talk, Q&A and discussion over cheese and wine. 7.30pm-9.00pm in the Vaults Cafe. |
| | The Muse: a six-part series on the creative spark
‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ – a question creative people are often asked, and which they often flounder to answer. Do we seek inspiration from the natural world, from the news, from knowledge of ourselves? Is the creative Muse an internal or external energy? This series – featuring, amongst others, award-winning poet Antony Dunn and historical drama expert Dionysios Kyropolous – will shed light on the creative processes in the arts, through talks, workshops and Q&As. Wednesdays, October 19th-November 23rd inclusive. See flyer for further details.
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| | Poetry Corner
Going
‘I love you both’
in dust on the train window.
My glasses
fall onto a newspaper,
now the child in the photograph
is wearing my glasses.
Ian McMillan (To Fold the Evening Star, Carcanet, 2016)
This week sees Antony Dunn, award-winning poet, giving a workshop on getting ideas for poetry. I was reminded of this lovely little poem by Ian McMillan, which – so short and compact – manages to smuggle a great deal into our experience. Rather than being the poet’s responsibility to give voice to another, in this poem the object is to let the reader see from the perspective of the poet – the reader needs to wear the poet’s glasses, as it were. Poetry can be a wonderful means of communion with strangers, a portal into other minds and different experience.
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