Bishop’s Note: The Prayer of Committal

Bishop Eric Menees

Dear brothers and sisters, I pray that this Bishop’s Note finds you safe and well this fifth week of Eastertide! This week we continue our discussion of the Burial Rite in the 2019 Book of Common Prayer. As we did last week, today we will continue to look at the Committal, this time focusing on the prayer of committal itself. Committal is the term for this section of the service, and what it means is entrusting or handing over. It’s not that a person is being committed to a grave, but committed to God, in a similar way that someone living may be entrusted or committed to a hospital or someone’s care.  In a very lovely way, this can be seen as the extension of the committal in baptism. When a child or person of any age is baptized they are being placed into God’s loving hands to guide, guard, and care for during this life. The prayer of committal is extending that care into the next.  This prayer is in a way the heart of this part of the service because it’s a prayer of committal, of entrusting. As we pray, “committing our brother N. to your gracious keeping.” This is a hugely important part of the service not just being able to pray for your loved one, but so those still alive on Earth can be reminded that their loved one is entrusted to God. As I heard a priest say before, “the souls of the dead are entrusted to God, and there’s nowhere better we can hope for them to be.” I hope you all have a blessed Sixth Sunday of Easter and Feast of the Ascension!

Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of those who depart in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful are in joy and felicity: We praise and magnify your holy Name for all your servants who have finished their course and kept the faith; and committing our brother N. to your gracious keeping, we pray that, together with him and with all those who are departed in the true faith of your holy Name, we may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in your eternal and everlasting glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.