The Automated Anglican | Funeral of Roderick O'Dowd

Conor_Diocese Funeral

Funeral of Roderick O’Dowd – Prayers

I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8: 38,39

We have come here today to remember before God our dear brother Roderick to give thanks for his life, to leave him in the keeping of God his creator, redeemer and judge, to commit his body to be buried, and to comfort one another in our grief, in the hope that is ours through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Therefore we pray that here today we may know the peace of Christ in communion with all God’s faithful servants.

God of all consolation, whose Son Jesus Christ was moved to tears at the grave of Lazarus his friend: Look with compassion on us your children in our loss; give to our troubled hearts the light of hope, and strengthen in us the gift of faith, in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for Roderick for the example he has left us, and for the fellowship we have enjoyed with him. We rejoice in your promise of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, in whom the bond of love is never broken.

We pray for all who mourn, remembering Roderick’s wife Margaret, their children Roger, Colin, Brian and Jane and their grandchildren.

Remembering Roderick’s love of nature: Father, we thank you for the beauty and diversity of the created world we inhabit. We ask for the wisdom to tend it carefully, respecting the natural laws and sharing the resources, listening to the weak as well as the strident, the poor as well as the affluent and powerful, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Bring us, o Lord God, at our last awakening into the house and gate of Heaven, to enter into that gate and dwell in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music; no fears or hopes, but one equal possession; no ends or beginnings, but one equal eternity, in the habitations of thy glory and dominion, world without end.

God our creator and redeemer, by your power Christ conquered death and entered into glory. Confident of his victory and claiming his promises, we now leave your servant Roderick in your gracious keeping; in the name of Jesus our Lord, who died and is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 1 Peter 1: 3

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness. As a father cares for his children, so does the Lord care for those who fear him.

For he himself knows of what we are made; he remembers that we are but dust. Our days are like the grass; we flourish like a flower of the field. When the wind goes over it, it is gone, and its place shall know it no more.

But the merciful goodness of the Lord endures for ever on those who fear him, and his righteousness on children’s children.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, you have given us a sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life. In your keeping are all those who have departed in Christ. We here commit the body of our brother Roderick to the ground earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who died, and was buried, and rose again for us, and who shall change our mortal body that it may be like his glorious body, according to the mighty working by which he is able to subdue all things to himself.

Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lamb who is at the throne will be their shepherd, and will lead them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away all tears from their eyes. Revelation 7: 17

God be in my head, and in my understanding. God be in mine eyes, and in my looking. God be in my mouth, and in my speaking. God be in my heart, and in my thinking. God be at mine end, and at my departing. Amen.