"Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers in their generations." A very famous, very well-known line from Scripture. Even non-Christians recognize that quotation, though they may not know its source. "Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers in their generations." Famous men and women do tend to get praised, even those not worthy of praise get remembered.

The writer of Ecclesiasticus is intelligent, he knows and mentions that the famous tend to get their due: "they were honored in their generation and were the glory of their times, and men declare their praise."

But the writer of Ecclesiasticus is a little more wise and much more tender when he notices and admits: "there are some, who have no memorial, who have perished as though they had not lived; they have become as though they had not been born. -- But they have not been forgotten, their glory is not blotted out."

They will not be forgotten, not by family and close friends, and not by their church.

At our All Souls' Mass I prayed for 98 people, departed this life, some recently, some very long ago -- all remembered by those who loved them, and prayed for solemnly in mass offered by a priest and his people who may not have met them, ever, but remembered them, here, at that Altar.

This all leads me to offer you two things this morning, from this pulpit, which I hope you will accept: a reassurance and a request.

A reassurance that it will not ever be as though you never lived, as though you had not been born, not here, not in this place, not at St .Mary's, not among these people. You will be remembered with fondness and gratitude and love here, for a very long time, long after your death and departure. And prayed for -- for years, decades, after you are gone.

That is the reassurance. Now the request part. The request is linked to the reassurance, The parish needs your help in fulfilling that reassurance, in making good on that promise. It is through your gifts year after year to this parish, and only because of those gifts, that the parish survives and goes on and remembers you after you have departed this life in God's faith and fear, remembers you, prays for you, give thanks for you.

And now is time each year when we begin to think about and respond to our annually recurring appeal for operating funds to continue this inheritance, to safeguard the mission and ministry of this extraordinary parish, while we ourselves in our time now, are stewards of its mysteries, and guardians of its faith and life. The time comes each year, each November, to commit ourselves to a decisive and devout effort to insure. support. and strengthen the mission and ministry, the witness and worship of this holy place, encouraged and strengthened by the Communion of all the Saints who have preceded us.

We want to continue our worship in the beauty of holiness, we want to continue our commitment to feeding people though donations of food, for the various city food banks, reaching out to the homeless and the destitute throughout our state by means of our Diocesan pledge and the ministries that funds. We want to continue caring for those living new lives in a new land, learning a language and culture. We will want engaging programs and good Christian education for our youth and children. All of these things, and so many more, call for faithful, devout, and courageous attention, and require an effort by all of us. Meeting the needs of our parish each year calls for serious, heroic, sacrificial efforts by all of us.

A sacrifice for all of us, but also, for all of us, a precious opportunity as well, an opportunity to leave something wonderful behind when we leave.

For most of the people here, mercifully, the day you will die is still very far off. But still we know that the day, however distant, will come at last. All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, and the Sunday of All Saints remind us of that, and may well bring up deep, ultimate questions with renewed intensity -- the great questions, "what is to become of me, into what am I proceeding, what will it all be like when I leave?"

Those questions will be answered by God and him alone, in the day we stand before him. But thinking about those vast questions we cannot now answer, brings up others that we can ask and probably answer.

Questions like: "What difference have I made, in this short season of my mortality? What, after it is all accomplished, will I have left behind, what will remain, here, for others, because of me, to help them on their way, until we all attain to the full measure of the stature of Christ?"

After us, young men and women, some not yet even born, will come here, and they will find what we have left to them, lives enriched and sustained and supported and immeasurably assisted because you and I lived and died, because we were faithful in our season, because we left in trust for them a community of faith, a place to talk with God, a holy and devout and well-prayed-in building, this consecrated spot, well-cared for and well-tended and well-loved. We are so keenly aware especially this month of all that has left to us here by others before us. We take time now to move on from our gratitude for the past -- this the gift we have been given -- to now consider the future, and the gift we can leave to others yet to come.

When you die, you may be one of those famous men or women who are praised because you were the glory of your time. Or you may join those who have no such widespread glory, but you will never perish as though you had not lived. Because you were faithful in your appointed time, this place will go on and serve and help and sustain generation after generation of Christians.

We all need each other's help to keep this place alive, to make it grow and flourish, to guarantee that it will be handed-on to another generation in good shape as a thriving parish where God is seen to be at work We need to do this together through what we each have to offer in terms of our time and our talents and our gifts and our prayers and our donations and pledges each year.

Whether we ourselves have a memorial, or a famous name and the praise of men, or whether we have no great glory, we still have this, if we take care, we have this church, this parish, to pass on in good shape and great faith to those after us. For that, we can hope to be remembered, and in a small way be, perhaps, thought of as the glory of our times.