The communion of saints

Saints with attitude/c. MJD 2014

The photo is Crash's, from the facade of Strasbourg's cathedral. Today, standing at the font at the start of Mass, we read the names of those who had died from the parish this year, interspersed with the Litany of the Saints.  I was serving, holding the cross, standing next to the deacon while the pastor incensed our Book of the Dead.

As the incense rose, memories too, rose and mingled.  Bringing the boys to this very font to be baptized.  Standing in the back of a different church, spreading the pall over Tom's coffin, the incense hovering over the aisle.  Funerals of friends and family.  Easter candles.

I held up the cross and led the procession down the aisle, as the choir sang the litany and the assembly responded.  I wondered if this was what it might be like after I die, carrying a cross down an aisle, calling on the saints to pray for me.