I can’t say any more about it online, but there is hope that justice will be done.

To paraphrase Mr Smeaton – This is Glasgow, we’ll just chase you.

It is often a rare thing for people in my job to do Bible study with other preachers. Very fruitful too.

One of the things I noticed for the first time today was how Luke’s justice theme begins in the songs he quotes in the first couple of chapters. (Magnificat and More). I’d not really thought about that connection between Song and Justice, but I’m thinking more about it right now.

He is taking his first steps in the Blogosphere and needs our encouragement and compassion. He says on twitter that its scary. However, I can’t work out whether he is frightened of everyone reading what he says or whether it is a fear that no-one will read what he says. Anyway, off you go and say hello to him and add him to your rss feeder. And be nice. Don’t upset him.

He is talking about politicians and golf at the moment, but it will be parrots before Christmas, I’ll be bound.

(Tip of the biretta to Fr Madpriest).

Does anyone know which Scottish bishop is going? We are usually quite good at turning up to things in Sweden.

No, I’m not talking about the congregation, who are far from being relics, I am talking about, you know, holy relics. (Not that the congregation are not holy, either).

It was that tour of the relics of Thérèse of Lisieux that made me think about it. People turned out for her in astonishing numbers during a recent tour around England and Wales. Did someone tell me that 300000 had turned out to pray near her bones.

I think that is an astonishing number. I’ve mixed views about it too. I’m enough of a modern person to find it all a bit macarbre. However, I also know that I’ve prayed at plenty of shines which claimed plenty of relics and so guess that I’m not one to criticise.

Here’s my list of visited saints’ shrines:

• St Mark – Cairo
• The head of John the Baptist and the bones of Elisha the Prophet – Monestary of St Macarius the Great, Wadi el Natrun
• Cuthbert – Durham
• Bede – Durham
• Frideswide – Oxford
• Various Macariuses – Wadi el Natun
• Anba Rewis – Cairo
• St Bishoi & Paul of Tammua – Wadi El Natrun
• Athanasius (smelly) – Cairo
• Edward the Confessor – London
• Forearm of St Lawrence (suitably charred) – Ampleforth
• Kentigern – High Kirk, Glasgow
• Aelred – Rievaulx (though don’t know whether any of him is there)
• Magnus – Orkney
• Martin of Tours (jawbone) – some church next to a canal in France

I’ve a feeling I’ve been to more than that, but can’t remember right now.

All the same, I’m in no position to be sniffy about people turning out for young Thérèse now, am I?

So, the obvious next question, is, who have you visited

Yesterday, we did what we do. There are always temptations when you have folk in observing. I was tempted to have a procession, but decided that as we’ve not done that in years, it might be asking for trouble to do it on a Sunday when you want things to happen as they should. The risk of everyone bumping into one another or all falling over is just too great sometimes.

Inevitably, I found myself wishing that I had had the impresionable student minds for longer. I’d have liked them to be able to compare yesterday morning with last night’s glorious evensong and it would have been great to get them to the Requiem tonight. However, I guess it is a realistic challenge. Lots of people try out St Mary’s for one service and they make their minds up very quickly whether it is for them or not.

I like going into theological classrooms, especially to talk about liturgy and preaching. They are both things that I think everyone involved in public worship can always learn to do better. When I was a theological student in Edinburgh, the students had a weekly meeting, which was at a time that had been deliberately chosen to ensure that staff were not present at. Our agenda was always the same, every week.

1 – How can we make the worship better.

2 – Any other business

We rotated the chairing of the meeting because there was an acknowledgement amongst us that chairing meetings was yet another thing that we were not being taught how to do in the formal TISEC structures.

I don’t know how it left the others involved. I know that it left me as someone who thinks every week about how to make worship better. It also made me someone who is easily bored in church. Dull liturgy, scrappy worship booklets and dreary hymns just make me wonder why anyone would want to come.

I want to begin this morning, not with a story, but with a stained glass window.

It isn’t a window in this building. No, it is in the place where I first started in ordained ministry – the St Ninian’s Cathedral in Perth.

It is a building not unlike this one – the style is similar to the style of this one – Victorian Gothic with knobs on. And of course, it is filled with stained glass. Worshipping there, just as it is when we worship here, we are surrounded by the saints. They surround us in the windows to such an extent that we often forget that they are there. Just like here, in Perth, there are saints wherever you look.

Not long after I had been ordained, I took myself on a little walk around the cathedral and I spotted a window which interested me. It was biblical scenes. Saints of yore. In the bottom left, there was the young girl that Jesus raised from the dead. On the right there was another scene which I can’t recall right now. And at the top, there was Lazarus being called out of the tomb by Jesus – the story that I have just read. The thing that made me stop and stare at this window was not the colours. It was not the artistry. It was not the skill of the designer or particularly the theme of the window. No, what made me stop and stare was Lazarus’s moustache.

You see. Lazarus had such a fine moustache. And when I looked closer I saw that he was not some middle-eastern dead body wrapped in grave-clothes, but rather, he was a late Victorian chap. Quite handsome. Quite fresh faced. And with a very fine moustache.

It made me want to know more about the window – and I eventually discovered that it was put there by one of the great benefactors of that building, one of the Earls of Kinnoull. And what we saw in the window was a collection of Bible stories. In each one the biblical saints were there, each one in one of the gospel scenes of resurrection.

The faces of the saints though were very obviously family members, including this Victorian young gentleman.

And across the window it says, “I am the resurrection and the life”.

When that window was installed, of course, death was much more common in the Victorian home than it is for us, especially the death of your people. And there, someone had brought together the saints with pictures which would remind them of family members whom they had lost. Saints and souls together in one image, with the light of the sun shining through into the church.

Now, I want you to keep that image of that window in your mind as I preach this morning.

I’m often aware these days that as people join this congregation, they often come from other traditions, and sometimes find it hard to grasp the festivals we keep and today I want to preach about what we are up to at this time of year.

On this day, today, we remember the saints. In doing so, we remember the heroes of faith. Those apostles, teachers, evangelists, martyrs, healers, and preachers who served God in their service of God’s people. The saints through the ages – those whom we know by name and those whose names are known only to God are remembered every year at the start of November.

When we remember them, we recall the special things that they did. The acts of courage. The lives of service. The faithful actions of those who brought the church into being and brought the faith, somehow or another to us.

We remember them, as the bible says, as a great cloud of witnesses. The cloud of people who witnessed to their faith in their time here on earth and are remembered forever more as being God’s beloved.

And immediately afterwards, the day after All Saint’s, tomorrow evening, we remember something which is similar, but different.

And the two usually, purposefully, intentionally get a little muddled up. All Saints and All Souls tend, quite properly, to get mixed up. And the light shines through both and illuminates the church.

Today we remember the saints.

Tomorrow we remember those have died who were known more personally to us.

I find that tomorrow’s festival when we remember those who have died is one of the most important to me in my ministry. For being with people when they are dying and being with people when someone has died are some of the most profound privileges of ministry.

I never sit with someone who is dying without being conscious that God sits with us.

I never stand at a grave or at the crematorium without feeling hope swell up in my own bones. Hope in a God who will take all things to himself in the end. A God who unites us, ultimately unites us within himself by drawing us on in love.

Sometimes I know that I am the only one who is there who has that hope.. But I know I have it. And I believe.

There is something important about doing these things together. We celebrate the saints. We commend those who have died to the care of Almighty God. We meet as friends of Christ. Christ who stood at the edge of the grave of a friend and wept.

Let me suggest two things to do make these feast days real. Today when you approach the altar of God, bring something with you. Come with thanksgiving in your heart for those who are responsible for giving you the faith you have had. That might be the Gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It might be saints who built the church in Scotland or wherever you are from – Mungo, Kentigern, Margaret. It might be those whom you have a special devotion to – for me that would be Cuthbert, Aelred and Columba. It might be saints of modern times, living or dead who inspire you – Martin Luther King, Cicily Saunders, Gene Robinson, Desmond Tutu, Jean Vanier, Rosa Parks. Give yourself time to work out which names you want to remember.

As you come to the altar with open hands, bring their names in your hearts and give thanks for them.

Tomorrow evening, do the same thing. Come to the altar with open hands and bring with thanksgiving the memory of those whom you have loved by whom you see no longer for they have died.

When we do these things, when we keep these festivals, we dream the kingdom of God into being. Let us keep the hope of heaven in our hearts and build the kingdom of God here on earth.

Countless thousands have gone before us building God’s kingdom. Endless love has been poured on us by the God who made us. All the hopes and dreams of humankind have lived in the minds of those who have taught us to love and those whom we have loved in return.

And so, let us live with love and thanksgiving in our hearts. And giving thanks, let us love, for love brings life to the world. Amen.

To be precise, the mission of SPRED is:-

* to form small communities of faith in parishes to welcome children and adults with learning disabilities.
* to provide an appropriate method of catechesis
* to foster full inclusion in assemblies of worship

This afternoon, invited guests were present at an ecumenical service in the SPRED tradition. It is not often that I get to encounter the holy in simplicity. My way to God is usually through lots of words – lovely words, complicated words, sung words. Today that was all pared down to the utter essentials. Simplicity, routine, friendship and love that was utterly real were the order of the day.

Do go have a look at the SPRED website. This work ought to be better known.

This weekend we keep the joint festivals of All Saints and All Souls. All Saints falls on 1 November and All Souls falls the next day. They are both in their way related to Easter and one of the glimpses of resurrection that we receive to spur us on our way through the year.

All Saints comes first and is a day of thanksgiving for, well, all the saints. That means remembering those heroes of faith who have stuck lingered long in the church’s collective memory. A good spiritual exercise at an All Saints service is to try to name those saints whose story has touched you. That might include saints from the Christian calendar, but it might also include your granny or a Sunday-school teacher or someone whom you have known who shone with God’s brightness in a special way. The thing to focus on is those people who have passed on the faith to you. The people who have made sure that you could know about God.

All Souls comes on Monday evening. The colours change from the White and Gold of Allsaintstide to Black and gold for a special service where we remember by name those who have died who have touched our lives. (Again, this might include your granny). We always remember those who have died in the past year whose funerals have taken place from St Mary’s and the congregation is invited to add names to the list. It is one of the most moving parts of the year to remember with thanksgiving all those who have died and to pray for them and for one another whilst we do so. The music that we offer at this service is always the most beautiful that we can manage and this year we are having the Fauré Requiem. (This is a first for the trebles). At the end of the service, the list of names is carried to the High Altar and put under the altar cloths where it will remain until this time next year.

So there you are.

Now, lets start this weekend off with a few saints worth remembering.

Here is my list …

1. St Columba – I was ordained on 9 June, his Feast Day
2. St Cuthbert – whose tomb I prayed at when I was trying to work out my vocation
3. St Aelred – beloved friend of friendship. (Whom I preached about in January)
4. St Mary – because she is with us as we worship

Now, who are your favourites?

Here is today’s news.

• Fr Dougal has been posting about the scandal of Rowan Williams (and others) not speaking out about human rights abuses in Uganda.
• Mother Dunblane is getting us to think about Unicorns.
• Fr Kirsten has spotted a wren. (Pictures please!)
• There is a new build underway at St Silas. (But Fr David’s comments seem to be the wrong way up to me).
• Mother Ruth desperately needs company - go and cheer her up. (Or else she will start telling us what is wrong with her just to solicit attention).
• Kate is through selection. Hurrah! She now starts to write about TISEC and has posted the best literary cat pic for quite a while.
• Over in Dumbarton, Fr Kenny wins the Altar-of-the-Day Award.
• Rosemary Hannah is making sloe gin. (Oh, the taste of Boxing Day).
• Fr Raspberry Rabbit has been looking at Titians. (But I can’t work out how to do permalinks to his blog)
• Bishop Mark is back from Canada. He has not enabled comments yet, which is a pity given that he has a picture like that.
• Morag is quiet. But she’s been giving birth. Congratulations!
• Layclerk wrote about his niece getting her surplice. (And managed to write about prayer without swearing).
• Jack the Lass writes about what happens when faith and a PhD bump into one another in a feminist kind of a way.
• Fr AKMA ponders whether people are bothered by the difference between the University of Glasgow and Glasgow University.
• And Fr Eamonn writes about the Pope