From time to time, people will ask what things the Cathedral needs that they could donate as a memorial to a loved one. Such inquiries are always welcome, but the truth is that it is harder every time to make an appropriate suggestion. This church has many possessions, lacking very little in the way of "holy hardware" or other furnishings.

However, its important to honour people’s desires for a memorial to their loved ones, acknowledging that for many people that means having something you can see.

The physical is important. This is a sacramental church, which enshrines a very physical reality at the heart of our worship. Each Sunday we come to receive something we can feel and taste—the bread and wine of the Eucharist, a tangible memorial of our Lord Jesus Christ. In every Eucharist, we make memorial or (in Greek) "anamnesis," meaning literally "not forgetting."

Take a look around this Cathedral, at the memorial plaques on the walls, the dedications of the windows, the assorted bits of furniture bearing brass plaques, and the memorial books at the back. What does all of this tell us? –That people lived and were loved, that they contributed to the life and well-being of this church and this community, and that those they left behind did not want to lose their memories. We ought not to forget.

All Saints’ and All Souls, its "companion" day, are the foremost days of the church year for us to look back and remember those who have gone before us in the faith. Last Wednesday, we celebrated All Souls Day with a Eucharist in Commemoration of the Faithful Departed. That service was held at the Columbarium in remembrance of the people whose remains lie there, as well as those who were buried from St. Matthew’s in the past year and others whom we were asked to remember. Today we celebrate the Feast of All Saints, transferred as is customary to the Sunday after November 1.

All Souls is a day for looking back. All Saints is a day for looking around, at our forebears to be sure, but also at the church they left behind, celebrating it as a living memorial of their witness to Christ. I believe that the best memorial to the saints is the vitality of the church that continues their ministry.

We who gather here today are the living memorial of those who built this church, not just this building of brick, stone and wood, but this living body of faithful people. Just over three years ago, when I first walked into this building, I was immediately struck by its holiness. This holiness is not something you can point to, like a plaque or a line in a memorial book. It is found rather in the percieption that the building had been the locus of so much holy activity. Holy people make holy buildings—making those buildings holy by making their lives holy.

Without holy people, any building is just bricks and mortar. Its physical structure and contents are ultimately nothing, if they do not continue to reflect the living and active faith of the people who come there to pray and to worship, and to do God’s work.

But thanks be to God, the faith lives and moves in so many people, continuing to testify to the faith of our forebears. We are their living memorial. It is our faith, lived out in ministry in the church and beyond, that best testifies to theirs.

Behind the physical we always find the spiritual—the memorial that will never fade. We take the bread and wine and physically consume them, but the Body and Blood of Christ that we receive will never die as long as people of faith continue to come to this table.

We come today in thanksgiving for those who have gone before us in the faith, in celebration of those who support us in this life, and in the hope of life in God’s nearer presence, promised to us by our Lord Jesus Christ.

May we continue to be that living memorial to Christ and to that great multitude of saints who have followed him in this life and into the next. May we never forget them, and may our lives honour those memories.

Thanks be to God for all his faithful people, here and to the ends of the earth.

Amen.