Читать книгу In Sure and Certain Hope - Paul Sheppy - Страница 5

An Introduction

This book is intended as a resource for those taking services connected with death, dying and bereavement. It offers a number of orders of service, suggestions for scripture readings and prayers (for use both generally and in special circumstances) and a number of other readings and reflections which a visitor may use as a ‘bridge’ in planning with families and friends for funeral or memorial services. It also includes a theological and pastoral commentary explaining in more detail the way in which the various services came to be structured.

What is provided may be followed closely or adapted for use, according to preference and customary practice. No one funeral is exactly the same as another – although the framework will normally be substantially similar. The aim, therefore, has been to offer guidance rather than to prescribe performance. Ministers and others are invited to be free in their use of what they find here. Obviously, many of those who take funerals have the service books of their own traditions. This book is offered as a collection of complementary and supplementary resources. Ministers should feel free to adopt and adapt what they find according to the particular circumstances in which they minister to the dying and the bereaved. Where Holy Communion is to be celebrated in the context of the funeral service, ministers should follow the forms provided by their own traditions.

Much of the work was undertaken when I was a member of the Joint Liturgical Group of Great Britain, and I am grateful to colleagues for the detailed comments they made while the work was in progress. My particular thanks should go to Bill Gabb, Kevin McGinnell and Nigel Uden, who saw the work in its initial stages and enabled me to eradicate all sorts of slips and infelicities. None of these friends, however, should be held to account for the final result.

In thirty years of ministry, I have sat with the dying and the bereaved and I have attempted to share with them in tears and laughter something of the hope that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ represent. Tears come naturally at times of death, but laughter does come too. Stories are told which may bring a smile, memories are kindled which may raise a laugh. Into those stories comes the story of Jesus who taught his disciples to weep with those who weep and laugh with those who laugh. His death redeems all death and the Christian observance of death is not simply a celebration of life that is past, but a reverent approach to judgement and a joyful hope of life eternal.

Paul Sheppy