Page 209 - Eggs and Ashes pages

208 Eggs and Ashes

We wait in hope

God of life and death
WE WAIT IN HOPE.

God of all the worlds that are
WE WAIT IN HOPE.

God of dazzling darkness 3
WE WAIT IN HOPE.
WE WAIT IN HOPE AND AWE.

Ruth Burgess

Conversations in a graveyard

John Miller, a minister in Glasgow, once shared a story with me of an afternoon he
spent in a graveyard:
‘I’d heard that every year the Roman Catholic churches hold a mass in the local
cemetery,’ he said. ‘Apparently this mass at the burial place is a custom among the
Irish. I’ve been the minister of this Church of Scotland parish for thirty years and a
year or two ago I went along to the service myself. In a crowd of several hundred I
found myself standing among many people I knew. Some were my neighbours.
With others I had shared in a family funeral. After the mass everyone strolled from
grave to grave, talking fondly to other families, laughing at good memories, asking
after one another with genuine concern.
‘The afternoon was extremely moving. With heightened emotions people shared
their thoughts about life and death, about family and loss, and about the Kingdom of
Heaven and the resurrection.’
Holy Saturday is traditionally the time when graves are tended in preparation for
Easter Sunday. Maybe on Holy Saturday, the place of burial is a good and meaning-
ful place to be.

Ruth Burgess and John Miller