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Letters from 22 to 28 May 2006

Like all letters to the editor everywhere, these letters are the opinions of the writers and not Anglicans Online. We publish letters that we think will be of interest to our readers, whether we agree with them or not. If you'd like to write a letter of your own, click here.

Can you help?

I wonder if anyone can help me. The church I serve is closing. The cremains of several people are interred in a columbarium next to the altar, and they are to be removed at the discretion of the surviving loved ones. However, I can find no resources for a rite of disinterment.

Does anyone have such a rite I can use?

The Reverend Lois Keen
St. Martin's Episcopal Church
Boothwyn, Pennsylvania, USA
revlois@comcast.net

'There are no sects in heaven'

Thank you so much for the message about "larger life." It is a holy juxtaposition to an "answer" I got to a question/prayer I posed the other day (in one of "those moments") What I "heard" was this "There are no sects in heaven. do what brings you closer to Me." And I imagined all my sectarian ancestors, whose voices I have allowed to stop me from the sacred for so long, agreeing.

The Reverend Christine Gilson
Trinity Episcopal Church
Lebanon, Missouri, USA

Well, we didn't mean all earthly matters...

I'm always interested in your editorials, but found this bit in last week's a tad complexing! "In that life of the world to come, drenched in the love of God, we expect that no one will even ask us how we felt about these earthly matters."

Does this imply no Day of Judgement, nothing so much as was promised by Christ about "Let all grow until the harvest". If all earthly matters are to be forgotten, how will the Christian Gospel be explained in Heaven? How will the tares know if they are counted? Does anything matter that we do here on earth?

St Peter says "Come on in! Pass through those pearly gates! No one will ever ask you about those earthly matters!"

I'm raving it up tomorrow!

Robert Parkhouse
St Agatha's, Sparkbrook, Birmingham
Solihull, ENGLAND
bobbyrob6@fsmail.net

Earlier letters

We launched our 'Letters to AO' section on 11 May 2003. All published letters are in our archives.