November 2024

 

I have recently been reading the autobiography of a cat  ̶  admittedly aided by a human amanuensis  ̶  which, as is the way of felines, provoked profound thoughts.

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The cat spent his early days having to fend for himself on scraps until he was adopted by a caring man who gave him a lovely home. Sadly, the man died young, and the poor cat was once again forced to subsist alone on the city streets: he ended his autobiography ‘My story will be over soon / But it’s nothing to be sad about / As we count up the memories from one journey, we head off on another’.

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The one certainty in life is death, and in this month of November the church recalls the departed in the celebration of All Saints, the commemoration of All Souls, and the country pauses to remember the dead of the World Wars on Remembrance Sunday.

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We all must all contemplate our eventual end: non-existence (or ‘life as we know it’) is difficult for me to comprehend but I recall the old Catholic devotion of Bona Mors, prayers for a good death so that, when the time comes, I will be ready ‘to shuffle off this mortal coil’.

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I recently came across a quotation from Publilius Syrus, a Roman slave ‘Bona mors est homini vitae quae exstinguit mala (A death that ends human suffering is good)’. In these days when Parliament is considering the complex moral question of assisted dying each of us must consider our individual stance, based not only on traditional Christian moral views as recently expounded by the Archbishop of Canterbury but also in the light of our individual conscience, formed by events in our pilgrimage through life.

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Like the little cat, our stories will one day be over and we can only pray that we shall pass peacefully from this world into the glories of the next.

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‘Into paradise may the angels lead thee’

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Deacon Douglas MacMillan

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The Collect

 

Eternal Father,

whose Son Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven

that he might rule over all things as Lord and King:

keep the Church in the unity of the Spirit and in the bond of peace,

and bring the whole created order to worship at his feet;

who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever. Amen.