October 15

“We are apt to feel as if nothing we could do on earth bears a relation to what the good are doing in a higher world; but it is not so. Heaven and earth are not so far apart. Every disinterested act, every sacrifice to duty, every exertion for the good of ‘one of the least of Christ’s brethren’, every new insight into God’s works, every new impulse given to the love of truth and goodness, associates us with the departed, brings us nearer to them, and is truly heavenly as if we were acting, not on earth, but in Heaven. The spiritual tie between us and the departed is not felt as it should be. Our union with them daily grows stronger, if we make daily progress in what they are growing in.”

CHANNING

. . . “After Christ, work turns to privilege,
And henceforth one with our humanity
The six-day Worker, working still in us,
Has called us freely to work on with Him
In high companionship. So, happiest!
I count that Heaven itself is only work
To a surer issue. Let us work indeed.”

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

October 14

“Let us, then, learn that we can never be lonely or forsaken in this life. Shall they forget us because they are ‘made perfect’? Shall they love us the less because they now have power to love us more? If we forget them not, shall they not remember us with God? No trial, then, can isolate us, no sorrow can cut us off from the Communion of Saints. Kneel down, and you are with them; lift up your eyes, and the heavenly world, high above all perturbation, hangs serenely overhead; only a thin veil, it may be, floats between. All whom we loved, and all who loved us, whom we still love no less, while they love us yet more, are ever near, because ever in His presence in whom we live and dwell.”

H. E. MANNING

“O blest communion! fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia!”

Bishop WALSHAM HOW

October 13

“Let us learn from this communion of saints to live in hope. Those who are now at rest were once like ourselves. They were once weak, faulty, and sinful; they had their burdens and hindrances; their slumbering and weariness; their failures and their falls. But now they have overcome. Their life was once homely and commonplace. Their day ran as ours. Morning, and noon, and night came and went to them as to us. Their life, too, was as lonely and sad as yours. Little fretful circumstances, and frequent disturbing changes, wasted away their hours as yours. There is nothing in your life that was not in theirs; there was nothing in theirs but may be also in your own. They have overcome each one, and one by one; each in his turn, when the day came, and God called him to the trial. And so shall you likewise.”

H. E. MANNING

“O may thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold,
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
And win, with them, the victor’s crown of gold.
Alleluia.”

Bishop WALSHAM HOW