Sorrow and loss did not have the last word that morning of our memorial observance at The American Lutheran Cemetery. I had been asked by Marta to put together an order of service and lead it, also. We began our service that day with an Invocation and Greeting borrowed from the memorial service of one of my Northfield Retirement Community parishioners.
Kim,from Global Health Ministries in the Twin Cities, read aloud Job 19: 23-27 and John 11:21-27. I shared a Meditation from the Oxford Book of Prayer, the chapter called I BELIEVE IN THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS, and the Prayer of the Day, composed of parts of an old hymn, LEAD KINDLY LIGHT, AMID THE ENCIRCLING GLOOM.
Then I told the story of hearing a family friend, just shy of 100 years, praying the Lord's Prayer in Malagasy along with my father, not long before her death. She was a missionary child from my father's era at MCH.
Marta prayed aloud for us the Lord's Prayer in Malagasy, and we closed our service singing the first and last verses of GOD BE WITH YOU 'TIL WE MEET AGAIN. We also sang a couple verses of a Malagasy hymn from our childhood: NY HIRANY LANITRA.
Meditation: "Death is the narrow passage out of time, place, and experience into what is utterly unknown. It is the supreme crisis of human life, to the eyes of the onlooker a total severance, the final stilling of all responses. But for the child of God there is no ultimate loneliness. The Body of Christ gathers around one who is dying to take leave of him or her, commending him or her to the saints who wait to welcome, and the angels who fortify and uphold...(The one who is dying) prepares to enter into the mercy of God and the fulfillment of the faith, hope, and love of his and of her baptismal endowment."
Prayer of the Day: "So long thy power has blessed me, sure it will lead me on still...'til the night is gone. And with the morn those angel faces smile which I have loved long since, and lost awhile...Meantime, along the narrow rugged path Thyself has trod, lead Savior, lead me home in childlike faith. Home to my God, for'er to rest from earthly strife in the calm light of everlasting Life. Amen."