Add Names of Departed Loved Ones to Our Book of Remembrance

Each November, beginning with our observance of the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls, we create a space in our church to honor our dead. The photographs and mementos we place at our Altar of Remembrance are signs that those we love, although gone from this life, are ever with us in Christ.

At the Altar this year is a new addition to this tradition (long-observed in many churches): a parish Book of Remembrance of the Dead. Throughout the month, we are invited to write in it the names of those departed we especially hold close this time of year. Those names will be read aloud at a special moment in our prayers on the Sunday of the Reign of Christ (the Feast of Christ the King) which marks the end of the liturgical year.

Every year, this book will be at our Altar of Remembrance for names to be added or inscribed again. So our commemoration and celebration of those who are gone from us, yet are still with us in the breaking of the bread, will continue and grow year by year.