Sermon: All Souls Requiem Eucharist

Preacher:

Bob Cooper

Date:

Sunday 2nd November 2025

Venue:

Guildford Cathedral

Service:

6pm Eucharist for All Souls

On this solemn feast of All Souls, we gather as the Church Militant to pray for those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. We stand at the threshold between this world and the next, united in the great mystery of the Communion of Saints, where the veil between heaven and earth grows thin, and we feel most keenly our connection to those who have departed this life.

The English poet John Donne wrote that "no man is an island, entire of itself." This truth extends beyond the boundaries of earthly life. We are not isolated individuals, but members of Christ's mystical body, bound together by baptism and sustained by grace. Death does not sever these bonds; rather, it transforms them. The Church has always understood that our prayers for the dead are both an act of charity and an affirmation of our belief in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.

Today we remember not the great saints whose feasts punctuate our calendar, but the ordinary faithful—our mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbours who have passed through death's dark door. We remember those whose names are carved on memorial stones in our churchyard, and those whose graves lie far from here. We remember those who died in the faith of Christ, and those who struggled to believe. We remember those who received the last rites, and those who died suddenly without the Church's farewell. For all these souls, we plead for mercy.

The Church, has never wavered in its commitment to praying for the departed. When the Reformers sought to sweep away this practice, they severed something precious—the recognition that love does not end at the grave, and that our prayers can still aid those who have gone before us. The Oxford Movement restored to the Church of England this pearl of great price, reminding us that we belong to a faith that reaches both backward to the Apostles and forward to the general resurrection.

At the heart of this practice lies a profound theological truth: love is eternal. Saint Paul declares in his great hymn that love "never faileth"—it never ends, never ceases, never comes to an end. If God is love, as Saint John tells us, and if we participate in the divine life through grace, then the love we bear for one another partakes of God's own eternity. Death cannot extinguish what is kindled by the Eternal Flame. The love that bound us to our departed brothers and sisters in this life does not terminate at the grave; rather, it continues in a new mode, purified and deepened by its passage through death's refining fire.

This is not mere sentiment, but the logical consequence of the Incarnation. When the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, He sanctified every aspect of human existence—birth and death, joy and sorrow, time and eternity. In His death and resurrection, Christ destroyed the ontological barrier between the living and the dead. The harrowing of hell was not simply Christ's descent to rescue the righteous who had died before His coming; it was the definitive invasion of death's realm by Life itself. Christ has made death a doorway rather than a wall, a passage rather than a terminus.

Therefore, when we pray for the faithful departed, we participate in Christ's victory over death. Our prayers are not desperate attempts to reach across an unbridgeable chasm, but the exercise of that communion which already exists in Christ. The Church is one body, whether its members walk on earth or sleep in Christ. The Eucharist we celebrate is not merely an earthly assembly, but a participation in the heavenly liturgy where angels and archangels and all the company of heaven worship the Lamb who was slain. At every Mass, the living and the dead are united in one act of worship, one offering, one sacrifice.

The Church Fathers understood this deeply. Saint John Chrysostom preached that "not in vain did the Apostles order that remembrance should be made of the dead in the dreadful Mysteries." Saint Augustine wrote movingly of his mother Monica, asking that she be remembered at the altar. These were not innovations, but the living faith of the apostolic church, which understood that the boundaries between this world and the next are porous to prayer, transparent to love.

In praying for the dead, we also confront the paschal mystery in its fullness. We acknowledge that death is both real and defeated—real in that it truly separates us from those we love, defeated in that Christ has trampled it down. We live in that tension between the "already" and the "not yet" that characterizes all Christian existence. Already Christ has conquered death; not yet has His victory been fully manifested. Already we are raised with Christ; not yet have we attained the resurrection. Our prayers for the departed are situated precisely in this eschatological tension, this "between time" in which the Church lives.

There is profound comfort in this practice, but also profound responsibility. How many of us carry grief not only for the loss of those we loved, but also guilt for things left unsaid, reconciliations deferred, opportunities missed to express our love? The ministry of prayer for the dead allows us to continue loving them, to continue our relationship with them in a new form. We cannot bring them back, but we need not abandon them to silence. We can still love them through our prayers. Indeed, we must love them, for love is the eternal law that governs both heaven and earth.

The Requiem Mass we celebrate today is perhaps the most beautiful expression of the Church's faith in the resurrection and her love for the departed. "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine"—Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord. These ancient words have been sung over countless graves, in countless languages, for countless generations. They unite us to the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before. In this Mass, heaven and earth meet. The angels join our worship. The saints intercede with us. And Christ Himself, the same yesterday, today, and forever, offers His sacrifice for the living and the dead.

This is no morbid preoccupation with death, but a profound affirmation of life—life that is stronger than death, love that the grave cannot contain, hope that reaches beyond the horizons of this world. When we pray for the dead, we proclaim our faith in the resurrection. We declare that death has not had the final word. We announce that Christ has trampled down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowed life.

The theological implications are staggering. If our prayers can aid the departed, then we glimpse something of the nature of redeemed time, where past, present, and future are held together in God's eternal now. We see that human action, empowered by grace, has consequences that ripple through eternity. We understand that the Church's ministry does not cease at the grave, but extends into the very heart of the mystery of death and resurrection.

As we leave this sacred place today, let us commit ourselves anew to this ministry of prayer. Let us remember the faithful departed not merely today, but throughout the year. Let us have Masses offered for them. Let us keep their memory alive not only in photographs and stories, but in prayer. Let us live in such a way that when our time comes to pass through death's door, others will pray for us as we have prayed for them.

For we are all pilgrims together, the living and the dead, making our way toward the eternal Jerusalem. Some have reached the end of their earthly journey; we continue ours. But we walk the same path, and we shall meet again in that place where there is no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, neither any more pain, for the former things are passed away.

May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.