Rev Canon Dr Rob Marshall - 31/10/2026

One of the good things about Halloween – a name derived from All Hallows’ Eve – is that it brings death out of the shadows, even if only for an evening. After all, death is something we don’t talk about nearly enough.

And because this is the season of All Saints and All Souls, every year at this time I compile a list of people I want to remember at tomorrow’s commemoration service for the departed. Along with churches and cathedrals all over the country, we host a solemn but also, I hope, joyful service of remembrance.

Losing someone we love is an experience that, sooner or later, comes to us all. It’s often one of the most difficult times of our lives. So, there is something deeply moving and spiritually uplifting about the ritual of these annual services of remembrance. We gather, mostly with strangers, to hear the names of our loved ones read aloud and to light candles in their memory.

In a recent article, the writer Matthew Parris reflected on how, as he grows older and becomes increasingly conscious of his own mortality, he finds himself wondering what, if anything, lies beyond death. He suggests that most people, when asked about an afterlife, would probably describe themselves as “don’t knows”, and that, as he puts it, “few are organising this life as a preparation for a life to come.”1

For Christians, of course, there is a promise of something beyond death. At many of the funerals I take, I read from John’s Gospel, where Jesus tells his disciples that he will prepare a place for them. And knowing how much suffering some people endure before death, his promise of a peace that this world cannot give provides great comfort to many.2

As Rowan Williams argues in his book Solidarity, remembering together helps us recognise our shared humanity. And perhaps that is part of what makes these services so moving. We remember those we have lost, but we also recognise something of our own experience in the grief of others.3

So, whether we are among the “don’t knows”, those with a more certain faith, or even those with no belief at all, surely the question for today is less about trying to imagine what happens after death, and more about how we choose to live before it.

There’s a prayer I often return to, asking for wisdom and grace “to use aright the time that is left to us here on earth.” As we remember those we have loved and lost this weekend, perhaps their lives can help us reflect on how we choose to live our own.