The closing days of November. We are on the cusp of Advent. Autumn's end is visible, the bare trees of the churchyard telling us that Winter is arriving. We are expecting frost. Today the sun will set a few minutes after 4pm.
The month began in Lutheran Scandinavia on All Saints' Day, and in Catholic central and eastern Europe on All Souls' Day, with candles lit at the graves of loved ones.
There is no such custom amongst Anglicans in these Islands. As the festive season approaches, however, churchyards will see Christmas wreaths being placed on many a grave. Visiting my father's grave on the days leading to Christmas each year, I am always touched by the number of wreaths placed on graves in the cemetery.
The words of the carol always come to mind:
For lo! the days are hastening on
By prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever circling years
Comes round the age of gold;
When Peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.
On a cold December day, with the festive season already in the air, the Christmas wreaths in the cemetery speak of both the Advent hope and the grace of the Incarnation transfiguring our mortality, our grief, our deaths.
November's closing days, and the approach of Advent Sunday, means that this sight will again soon appear in churchyards, and just as we will be hearing the words of the Bidding at the Nine Lessons and Carols:
let us remember before God all those who rejoice with us, but upon another shore, and in a greater light, that multitude which no man can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh, and with whom in the Lord Jesus we are for ever one.
Here, too, the symbolism of the Christmas wreath has meaning, the greenery proclaiming life, the circle speaking of unbroken communion: Advent hope and Christmas light.
As November ends, these weekly reflections on the meanings of churchyard are also brought to a close. We have journeyed through the churchyard in this month of the dead, with autumnal leaves gathering around us, seeing in the churchyard the hope of resurrection, of all things - the 'ever-circling years -gathered up in Christ. Now, as we prepare to enter into Advent, and with Christmas wreaths soon marking the graves of loved ones, we commend those who rest in the churchyards we know to the One who is Alpha and Omega, who is Light and Life Incarnate. We do so in words from the 1549 Holy Communion:
We commend unto thy mercy, O Lord, all other thy servants, which are departed hence from us, with the sign of faith, and now do rest in the sleep of peace: Grant unto them, we beseech thee, thy mercy, and everlasting peace, and that, at the day of the general resurrection, we and all they which be of the mystical body of thy Son, may altogether be set on his right hand, and hear that his most joyful voice: Come unto me, O ye that be blessed of my Father, and possess the kingdom, which is prepared for you from the beginning of the world.
(The photograph is from the lychgate into the churchyard of The Middle Church, in the heart of Jeremy Taylor country, on a Winter's day.)
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