Visiting a Grave

A Psalm of E=MC2 Easter

Brother Einstein’s Easter Law
delights my hopeful heart,
which wishes to never die.

For that quantum equation maintains
that matter taken to the speed of light squared
is turned into pure energy again.

My body, so subject to sickness,
to aging and death's cold bite,
is a companion human body of Christ
who encountered the kiss of death
upon Good Friday’s consecrated cross.

The lifeless matter of his once vibrant body
was carried away to the grave,
condemned to become a worm's decaying dinner.

Yet, you who are Life could not stand to see
your beloved’s body decay,
so you carried out once again
your first and awesome act of creation.

You reanimated the matter of his body
and moved its molecules
at more than the speed of light,
and it was again transformed
into the Light of Lights,
into pure eternal energy.

In your infinite design
nothing dies;
it only changes form,
until it finally and forever changes
into your form,
into the energy of the light of Love Divine.

Take hope, my heart,
be firm, my feeble faith,
for the matter of the flesh and bone I call me
will also become an Einstein Easter Event.
From Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim by Ed Hays

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Prayer for Visiting a Grave in a Cemetery

God of Abraham and of Moses,
Lord of the Living, who visited Jesus within His grave
and filled Him with the fullness of eternal life,
hear our prayer this day
as we come to the burial place of (name).

With reverence, we visit this sacred shrine
where his/her body was placed
within the womb of the earth
to await the final day of glory.

We pause in silence to be united with him/her.

pause for silent prayer

Lord, we have come on this pilgrimage of prayer
to keep the flame of love alive within our hearts.

As we read his/her name upon the marker-stone,
we rejoice because that name has been written for all ages
in the palm of Your divine hand.

May the breath of creation that surrounds this grave—
in trees, grass and earth, birds and sun—
join us in prayer.

May this pilgrimage remind us of what we already know:
that nothing dies;
rather, life is only transformed into new life.

Holy is this grave,
holy this earth that has held in gentle embrace
the bodies of all who are buried in this cemetery.

Lord,
with reverence, we leave a wreath of worship at this grave,
woven with love, adorned with memories
and with our faith in the reality
of that earthen Easter morning
when all the holy dead shall rise
in the splendor of Your glory.

Till that day, eternal rest to (name)
and to all the holy dead.

Amen
From Prayers for the Domestic Church by Ed Hays