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Contemplation on the Service for a Deceased Perso
When a person is dying, in the last weeks or days of life the mask of the everyday personality drops off. It is as if not only the physical sheath, but also the sheath of the soul breaks open. A dying person usually shows himself in all his vulnerability, as he rarely did during life. When you cross the threshold so vulnerably and broken-open, it is not surprising that on the other side of the threshold you are as helpless as a newborn baby. No wonder that in antiquity the day of death was called dies natalis, which means “day of birth.”
A fifteen-year old girl wrote on the day before she died totally unexpectedly a poem with the words:
Two woven hands
Unfold as two wings.
An inexplicable light.
Cries of joy, unheard.
Unborn being,
Forlorn human being,
Helplessly planted.
That is the world of a person who has just died, an unprecedented, unknown world, into which you are helplessly planted. There you need to be enveloped, just like a newborn. Thank God, that help comes in the form of angels’ hands that receive the deceased on the other side. But in the months and years after crossing the threshold, the deceased is still in all his fibers connected with us, the living.
The angels cannot give him the protection he needs by themselves. We humans cannot do that either. But together, angels and living partners in distress, we can help him come home in the land of his birth. That is the meaning and significance of the Act of Consecration for the Dead, just as formerly, in all times and cultures, people prayed for the deceased.
That is why we gather at the altar to accompany our dear deceased with our prayers, with our offering—for them to get wings in the world of the spirit.
-Rev. Bastiaan Baan, May 18, 2025
Peace be with you! (John 20:27)
The more often you hear these words, the more you may be surprised that they do not express an incontrovertible truth, but a possibility. Why did Christ never say: “Peace is with you”—not even to doubting Thomas, who was allowed to touch him? And why do we never hear at the altar: “Peace is with you”—whereas He is giving it to us? Does this mean that we have to make this possibility a reality?
What do we do with the soft touch of Peace that we receive at the altar? What does this touch bring about?
Peace is a mood that wants to reach further than a feeling of rest and harmony. It wants to be part of our voice, our gestures, even our feet. Are our feet—speaking with Paul—“…shoed with preparedness to spread the message of peace…?” (Ephesians 6:15)
With our feet we walk the path of our life. Semiconsciously and consciously we leave our traces. Only when we walk with Christ and He with us, do our feet begin to spread the message of His Peace. His Peace is not only meant for me, not only for my destiny, but also for everyone’s destiny. This Peace wants to go into the world in us, through us, to save what can be saved. For, Peace in the world is inconceivable. But walking the still, narrow path of Peace—this creates in a torn world an indelible track.
– Rev. Bastiaan Baan, April 27, 2025