A group of students were asked to list what they thought were the present “Seven wonders of the world”. Though there were some disagreements, the following received the most votes:

   1.    Egypt’s Great Pyramids

    2.    The Taj Mahal

3.    The Grand Canyon

4.    The Panama Canal

5.    The Empire State Building

6.    St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome

7.    The Great Wall of China

While gathering the votes, the teacher noted that one student had not yet finished her paper. So she asked the girl if she was having trouble with her list. The girls replies, “Yes, a little. I couldn’t make up my mind because there were so many”.

The teacher said, “Well, tell us what you have, and maybe we can help. The girl hesitated, then read, “I think the ‘Seven Wonders of the World’ are:

1.    To see

2.    To hear

3.    To touch

4.    To taste

5.    To feel

6.    To laugh

7.    And to love

The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The things we overlook as simple and ordinary and that we take for granted are truly wondrous! The most precious things in life cannot be built by hand or bought by man.

I have done something in the last number of months, which I haven’t really ever done before, and that is to go on two silent retreats. A lot of clergy, especially Roman Catholic Clergy, do this kind of thing as a matter of course. On both of these occasions I have met what I could only call truly ‘saintly’ people; there’s a sense of holiness about these people, which put my spirituality, or the lack of it, to shame.

I am convinced that these holy people look at our world around us differently than we do. While most of us, in that little exercise we just did, were mainly thinking of the great achievements of mankind; their point of reference would’ve been completely different.

Now, I’m not suggesting that we all become monks, because their environment is, let’s be honest, almost ‘unreal’. They give themselves time to smell the roses, so to speak. They work hard and they pray hard. They support themselves. They have no mortgage, they have no wives…if I try to be funny here, I’ll only get myself into trouble! They have none of the domestic hassles that most of us have to put up with everyday… I have to tell you this one.

One day a housework-challenged husband decided to wash his sweatshirt. Seconds after he stepped into the laundry room, he shouted to his wife, ‘What setting do I use on the washing machine?’ ‘It depends’, she replied. ‘What does it say on your shirt?’ He yelled back, ‘University of Oklahoma!’…You see men have to have that explained to them!

So while I’m not saying we should all become monks or nuns, we are called to be saints. Maybe not such great saints, but saints none the less.

Tuesday is All Saints Day. And while we remember specific Saints days at our mid-week Communion, All Saints Day is when we remember all the saints who have gone before us, those we haven’t known personally, and especially, on All Saints Day, the ones we have known and loved dearly. As we often say on Wednesdays, ‘the saints, who, in our own lives, have helped us on our journey of faith. Charlie Combe in his book ‘These are They’ likens All Saints Day to the Trooping of the Colour when the King reviews his troops, massed before him in sparkling array, their multi-racial regiments fanning out in all directions as far as the eye can see. It is indeed a Grand Finale to the end of the year; the last Saint’s Day of the year.

All Saintstide is when we remember personally those who are not with us physically anymore. Some Church of Ireland Churches actually list those out loud, who have died in the previous year from the particular Parish.

What we want to do is to remember all those we know and love (whether actually from this Parish or not) who have joined what we call the Church Triumphant. That is the ‘Communion of Saints’. They are still a part of us. And to believe that they are still a part of the same Church we belong to here on earth, the Church Militant is a rather comforting thought, I think.

Over the last while, we have been using, in our prayers the prayers composed by David Adam, a leading Christian author. And in all his prayers, he ends with giving thanks “for all those who have passed through death and are at peace in your nearer presence…We pray for loved ones departed from us…May we with them share in the peace of your everlasting kingdom”. Some people get very anxious about this kind of prayer. But I feel there is a very fine dividing line between remembering them, giving thanks for them and praying for them. Let me put it this way, perhaps it is not so much a matter of praying for them, as praying with them. If we cannot accept that, then we do not understand what the ‘Communion of Saints’ is all about.

Every time we recite the Creed we affirm our conviction that all believing Christians are bound to our Lord and bound to one another with a bond that can never be severed. Brothers and sisters in Christ can never be torn apart by distance, by disaster, or even by death. The Church of Christ Militant here on earth is at one with the Church of Christ Triumphant in heaven. (We’ve done this before). God’s people experience “mystic, sweet communion with those whose rest is won”. That is an article of faith.

Perhaps we have suddenly got very serious, because, I think, this is something which is very close to all our hearts. None of us is immune from the grief of saying farewell to someone we love very much. And, personally, I find my belief in the Communion of Saints something very comforting.

Our intercessions from David Adam ended this morning very simply like this: ‘Lord, grant us a share in the inheritance of your saints in glory. May we at the last be part of the church which is victorious. We give thanks today for all your saints and we join our praises with theirs.’ Amen.