David Raeburn Funeral & Service Of Thanksgiving

SOUTH OXFORD CREMATORIUM AND MEMORIAL PARK

Funeral and Service of Thanksgiving for the life of David Antony Raeburn 22 May 1927 - 1st Feb 2021 Thursday 18th February 2021 at 3 pm

The Raeburn Family welcome you to this service for David and, whether you can be present in person or online, your participation is much appreciated and a great comfort.

For those attending in person, please wear a facemask unless exempt and observe social distancing between household groups. Please hand sanitise on entering and leaving the chapel.

For those attending online, the link to the service can be found at www.obitus.com Username: Sove0366 Password: 632170 The service is conducted by the Revd Canon Dr Peter Groves, Vicar of S. Mary Magdalen, Oxford, and a member of the Faculty of Theology in the University of Oxford.

The choral music is recorded and performed by the Bede Choir directed by David Hill and Chichester Cathedral Choir directed by Richard Seal.

The music before the service is Master Tallis’s Testament by Herbert Howells, one of David’s most loved composers, and recorded by Robert Benjamin Dobey. The music after the service is Prelude on Rhosymedre by Ralph Vaughan Williams recorded by Robert Quinney, Director of Music at New College.

A collection in David’s memory is being made for Emmaus Oxford, https://emmaus.org.uk/oxford/ the homelessness charity currently supporting 28 formerly homeless people. You can contribute through the following link: https://www.tonksbrothers.com/make-a-donation/

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ORDER OF SERVICE Please stand as David’s coffin is carried into the Chapel.

Welcome and Announcements Introduction Priest:

All:

We meet in the name of Jesus Christ who died and was raised to the glory of God the Father.

Grace and mercy be with you.

And also with you

Priest:

We have come here today to remember before God our brother David; to give thanks for his life; to commend him to God our merciful redeemer and judge; to commit his body to be cremated, and to comfort one another in our grief.

Priest:

God of all consolation, your Son Jesus Christ was moved to tears at the grave of Lazarus his friend.

Look with compassion on your children in their loss; give to troubled hearts the light of hope and strengthen in us the gift of faith, in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

All: Please sit.

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Old Testament Reading Sirach 44.1-15 Often read by David at Whitgift Founder’s Day Service.

Read by Henry Ashwell Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers in their generations.

The Lord apportioned to them a great glory, his majesty from the beginning. There were those who ruled in their kingdoms, and were men renowned for their power, giving counsel by their understanding, and proclaiming prophecies; leaders of the people in their deliberations and in understanding of learning for the people, wise in their words of instruction; those who composed musical tunes, and set forth verses in writing; rich men furnished with resources, living peaceably in their habitations - all these were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of their times.

There are some of them who have left a name, so that men declare their praise. And 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, and so have their children after them. But these were men of mercy, whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten; their prosperity will remain with their descendants, and their inheritance to their children’s children. Their descendants stand by the covenants; their children also, for their sake. Their posterity will continue for ever, and their glory will not be blotted out. Their bodies were buried in peace, and their name lives to all generations.

Peoples will declare their wisdom, and the congregation proclaims their praise.

Reader All

This is the word of the Lord Thanks be to God.

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New Testament Reading Read by Henry Ashwell

Revelation 21.1-7

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, It is done. I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God and he shall be my son.

Reader All

This is the word of the Lord Thanks be to God.

Choral Reflection

Recorded by the Bede Choir

View me, Lord, a work of thine!

Shall I then lie downed in night?

Might thy grace in me but shine, I should seem made all of light.

Cleanse me, Lord, that I may kneel At thine altar pure and white; They that once thy mercies feel, Gaze no more on earth's delight.

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Worldly joys like shadows fade When the heavenly light appears; But the covenants Thou hast made, Endless, know not days nor years.

In thy word, Lord, is my trust, To thy mercies fast I fly; Though I am but clay and dust, Yet thy grace can lift me high.

THOMAS CAMPION (1567 – 1620)

RICHARD LLOYD (B.1933)

The Address by the Reverend Canon Dr Peter Groves.

Prayers of Intercession Priest

All Priest

All Priest

Loving Father we thank you for David’s life, for his humanity, energy, and sense of fun and for all he meant to us as a father, grandfather, brother, teacher, mentor, colleague, and friend.

Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer.

We thank you for David’s Christian faith and example. We thank you for the motivation it gave him to create environments in which young people could learn and grow.

Lord in your mercy Hear our prayer.

We thank you for David’s commitment to scholarship and his ability to transfer enthusiasm to his students whether in the classroom, on field trips or through drama. We thank you for the musicality, metre and rhythm 6

All Priest

All Priest

All Priest

All Priest

of his translations and the way he lit up all about him when directing.

Lord in your mercy Hear our prayer.

We thank you for David as an educationalist both in the state and private sectors. We thank you for his insistence that outmoded attitudes should change and, amongst all this, that he was still able to support individual pupils so caringly.

Lord in your mercy Hear our prayer.

We thank you for David’s talent in selecting teachers of outstanding ability, including several distinguished future headmasters. We thank you for his many students who have become prominent in so many fields and that his legacy continues in them.

Lord in your mercy Hear our prayer.

We thank you for David in retirement, for all he achieved with undergraduates in Oxford and as part of the community of New College.

We thank you for his happy knack of making friends of all ages and the unstuffy way he engaged, and the respect and encouragement he showed to all.

Lord in your mercy Hear our prayer We thank you for David’s love of his family, of Mary Faith, who he missed so much, and of Mark, Martin, and Fiona. We pray for them 7

All

and for all his family and loved ones in their loss and that they will be cheered by knowing of the affection and respect in which David was held by so many.

Lord in your mercy Hear our prayer

Priest

Let us pray with confidence as our Saviour taught us:

All

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.

Amen.

Priest

All

Give rest, O Christ, to your servant with your Saints; where sorrow and pain are no more; neither sighing but life everlasting.

Alleluia

The Commendation and Farewell Priest

Let us commend David to the mercy of God. 8

Priest

All

God our creator and redeemer, by your power Christ conquered death and entered glory. Confident of his victory and claiming his promises, we entrust David to your mercy in the name of Jesus our Lord, who died and is alive and reigns with you, now and for ever.

Amen

The Committal Priest

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great goodness.

As a father is tender towards his children, so is the Lord tender to those that fear him.

For he knows of what we are made; he remembers that we are but dust.

Our days are like the grass; we flourish like a flower of the field; when the wind goes over it, it is gone and its place will know it no more.

But the merciful goodness of the Lord endures for ever and ever toward those that fear him and his righteousness upon their children's children.

Priest

We have entrusted our brother David to God's mercy, and we now commit his body to be cremated: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust: in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our frail bodies that they may be conformed to his glorious body, who died, was buried, and rose again for us. To him be glory for ever.

Amen

All

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Priest

All

Unto him that is able to keep us from falling, and to present us faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever.

Amen

Nunc Dimittis

Recorded by Chichester Cathedral Choir

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word.

For my eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people: To be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of thy people Israel Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

LUKE 2:29–32

COLLEGIUM REGALE H ERBERT H OWELLS (1892 - 1983)

The congregation departs whilst the following organ recording plays: PRELUDE ON RHOSYMEDRE

RALPH VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS (1872-1958)

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