Order of Service for state funeral of Ronald Wilson Reagan, 11:30 am, June 11, 2004

THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF SAINT PETER AND SAINT PAUL Washington National Cathedral 11 June 2004 at 11:30 am

The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane Bishop of Washington and Dean of the Cathedral

His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America

The President of the United States President George H. W. Bush The Right Honourable the Baroness Thatcher, L.G., O.M., F.R.S The Right Honourable Brian Mulroney

The Celebrant is led to the center of the rood screen landing; all others to their seats.

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger.

For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For if we live, we live unto the Lord; and if we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.

Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; even so saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors.

When he has reached the rood screen landing, the Celebrant faces the congregation. When the casket is in position, and the bearers have departed, the Celebrant says

O God, whose mercies cannot be numbered: Accept our prayers on behalf of thy servant Ronald, and grant him an entrance into the land of light and joy, in the fellowship of thy saints; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Celebrant goes to his stall as the first and second readers are led to the lectern. The first reader steps up to the reading desk.

Hast thou not known? Hast though not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary. There is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

The first reader steps down to the landing, and the second reader steps up to the reading desk

Now the only way…to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God.… We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body.… The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as His own people.… For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.

O love of God, how strong and true, Eternal and yet ever new; Uncomprehended and unbought, Beyond all knowledge and all thought! O love of God, how deep and great, Far deeper than man’s deepest hate; Self-fed, self-kindled like the light, Changeless, eternal, infinite.

O heavenly love, how precious still, In days of weariness and ill, In nights of pain and helplessness, To heal, to comfort, and to bless! O wide-embracing, wondrous love! We read you in the sky above, We read you in the earth below, In seas that swell and streams that flow.

We read you best in him who came To bear for us the cross of shame; Sent by the Father from on high, Our life to live, our death to die. We read your power to bless and save, E’en in the darkness of the grave; Still more in resurrection light We read the fullness of your might.

O love of God, our shield and stay Through all the perils of our way! Eternal love, in you we rest Forever safe, forever blest. We will exalt you, God and King, and we will ever praise your name; We will extol you every day, and evermore your praise proclaim

Towards the end of the anthem, Mr. Mulroney is led to the landing lectern for his tribute.

As Mr. Mulroney returns, the landing lectern is removed. The Celebrant stands at his stall, faces the congregation, and introduces Baroness Thatcher’s videotaped tribute, then takes his seat again.

When Mr. Bush has finished, he is led back to his seat as President Bush is led to the pulpit.

ANTHEM, WILLIAM STEFFE SUNG BY THE ARMED FORCES CHORUS WITH THE US MARINE CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword; His truth is marching on. Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

I have seen him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps; His day is marching on. Chorus

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me. As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on. Chorus

During the last chorus, the third reader is led to the lectern for the Gospel lesson.

Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

As the reader returns to his stall, the Celebrant goes to the pulpit for the homily.

As the homilist returns to his stall, the orchestra and soloist begin the anthem.

Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved; How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed!

The Lord has promised good to me; his word my hope secures; He will my shield and portion be as long as life endures.

Through many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come; ’Tis grace that brought me safe this far, and grace will lead me home.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’d first begun.

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 debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

Almighty God, who hast knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord: Grant, we beseech thee, to thy whole Church in paradise and on earth, thy light and thy peace. Amen.

Grant that all who have been baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection may die to sin and rise to newness of life, and that through the grave and gate of death we may pass with him to our joyful resurrection. Amen.

Grant to us who are still in our pilgrimage, and who walk as yet by faith, that thy Holy Spirit may lead us in holiness and righteousness all our days. Amen.

Grant to thy faithful people pardon and peace, that we may be cleansed from all our sins, and serve thee with a quiet mind. Amen.

Grant to all who mourn a sure confidence in thy fatherly care, that, casting all their grief on thee, they may know the consolation of thy love. Amen.

Grant us, with all who have died in the hope of the resurrection, to have our consummation and bliss in thy eternal and everlasting glory, and, with blessed Peter and Paul and all thy saints, to receive the crown of life which thou dost promise to all who share in the victory of thy Son Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

During this hymn, those who are required for the departing ceremonies outside are unobtrusively escorted from the Cathedral.

Sing with all the saints in glory, sing the resurrection song! Death and sorrow, earth’s dark story, to the former days belong. All around the clouds are breaking, Soon the storms of time will cease; In God’s likeness, we awaken, Knowing everlasting peace.

O what glory, far exceeding, All that eye has yet perceived! Holiest hearts for ages pleading, Never that full joy conceived. God has promised, Christ prepares it, There on high our welcome waits; Ev’ry humble spirit shares it, Christ has passed th’ eternal gates.

During the last verse, vergers lead the Bishop of Washington, the Vicar, and the Celebrant to the foot of the casket, the Celebrant at the foot, the Vicar to his left, and the Bishop to his right, where they face the congregation

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

Thou only art immortal, the creator and maker of mankind; and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and unto earth shall we return. For so thou didst ordain when thou createdst me, saying, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” All we go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

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

Into thy hands, O merciful Savior, we commend thy servant Ronald. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech thee, a sheep of thine own fold, a lamb of thine own flock, a sinner of thine own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of thy mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.

The God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, the great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight;

And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be among you, and remain with you always. Amen.

As the introduction to the anthem begins, the three clerics are escorted back to their stalls.

The bodybearers come from the North transept, rotate the casket, and prepare to take it out.

During the last verse, the acolytes take their positions at the rood screen, and vergers take positions by their charges.

ANTHEM, NICK GLENNIE-SMITH SUNG BY THE ARMED FORCES CHORUS WITH THE US MARINE CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

To fallen soldiers let us sing Where no rockets fly nor bullets wing Our broken brothers let us bring To the Mansions of the Lord.

No more bleeding, no more fight No prayers pleading through the night Just divine embrace, eternal light In the Mansions of the Lord.

Where no mothers cry and no children weep We will stand and guard though the angels sleep Through the ages safely keep The Mansions of the Lord.

A Troubling Presence at a Funeral

By Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | June 11, 2004

Patriotic Americans will always cherish their memories of Ronald Reagan’s strong and courageous leadership during the Cold War. However, his funeral at the National Cathedral may uncap different emotions. Among those the Reagan family has invited to the ecumenical service is Mohammad Magid, a D.C.-area Muslim imam with disturbing ties to suspected terrorists.

Magid, who was born and educated in the Sudan, is the Director of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS). ADAMS has numerous close affiliations with the main targets of “Operation Green Quest,” “the largest U.S. terror finance investigation anywhere in the world.” In March 2002, federal agents raided ADAMS’s facility in Herndon, Virginia, as part of an investigation into financial support for terrorism. Federal affidavits state that the “Grove Street addresses” (500 and 555 Grove St. in Herndon) housed more than 100 interlocking Muslim organizations, most headed by Jamal Barzinji, and these groups gave material aid to terrorists. Among those raided were several major ADAMS associates, including its chairman. Magid himself was present when federal agents raided the Herndon offices of ADAMS in March 2002.

Soon after the raid, Magid held a public meeting encouraging “community building” among the organizations investigated. Although 100 people showed up at the Sterling, Virginia, public library for the meeting, another 150 members of the overflow crowd met at ADAMS headquarters itself.

And with whom did Magid wish to build alliances? Among those invited was Kit Gage of the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom, Sami al-Arian’s political front group. Al-Arian is the University of South Florida professor indicted for being Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s North American leader and chief financier. Wahhabi talk-show host Mahdi Bray, political advisor for the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), followed Gage. The Washington Times has described MPAC as “an anti-Semitic organization that has defended infamous terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah.”

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad also addressed the meeting. Awad has a long history of association with extremists, both in this country and in Bosnia. He once worked for senior Hamas political leader Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook’s Islamic Association for Palestine. Awad has removed all doubt about his inclinations, telling a crowd at Barry University in 1994, “I am a supporter of the Hamas movement.” Awad helpfully told the outraged crowd in Sterling: “This is a war against Islam and Muslims. Our administration has the burden of proving otherwise.”

ADAMS’s office is located in Sterling Virginia, but the organization also maintains a “Grove Street Facility” at 500 Grove Street in Herndon. A former Justice Department prosecutor has alleged, in a lawsuit filed in Florida, that funds from this address (and 555 Grove Street, right across the street) were forwarded to Sami al-Arian.

An affidavit stated the “Grove Street” groups – all of which were lead by Jamal Barzinji – were “suspected of providing material support to terrorists, money laundering, and tax evasion through the use of a variety of for-profit companies and ostensible charitable entities under their control, most of which are located at 555 Grove Street, Herndon, Virginia.”

More than 100 organizations (businesses and non-profits) have operated from the two addresses over the years, most tied to the Safa Group, one of Barzinji’s enterprises. The leadership and personnel of ADAMS frequently overlap with the organizations Operation Green Quest targeted.

The chairman of ADAMS is Ahmad Totonji, an Iraqi-born citizen of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and a key target of Operation Green Quest. Totonji was also named as a defendant in a $1 trillion lawsuit filed by more than 600 relatives of people who died in the 9/11 attacks. He acted as a co-founder and officer of the Saudi-founded/Saudi-funded (and now defunct) SAAR Trust. Additionally, he served as Vice President of the Safa Group and the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT).

Officials have linked the non-profit IIIT to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, testified before Congress in August of 2002 that IIIT employee Tarik Hamdi had personally provided batteries for Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone, keeping the wandering terrorist mastermind connected to his scattered ground troops. According to an Operation Green Quest affidavit, IIIT had also sponsored Basheer Nafi, “an active directing member of (Palestinian Islamic Jihad) front organizations.” Nafi, who acknowledges a chummy relationship with Sami al-Arian, lectures at London’s Muslim College. For this reason, Operation Green Quest raided the homes of Abdul Hamid Abu-Sulayman, former IIIT president; Jamal Barzinji, Director of IIIT; and Hisham Al-Talib, Director IIIT.

Customs agent David Kane also uncovered a monetary tie between IIIT and terrorism. Kane claims that, during a raid in Tampa, he found letters that prove IIIT sent at least $50,000 to the World Islamic Studies Enterprise (WISE), a front for Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The same affidavit states Ahmad Totonji personally signed an IIIT check in the amount of $10,000 to Sami al-Arian’s Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace on November 1, 2001. Such fortunes are chump change for the SAAR Trust, founded by Saudi magnate Suleiman Abdul Al-Aziz al-Rajhi. SAAR received $1.7 billion in donations in 1998 alone.

Totonji’s prolific connections to Wahhabi radicalism do not end there. He was a co-founder of the radical Muslim Students Association, as well as serving as its second President. Totonji also served as a founder and Secretary General of the World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY), a Saudi-supported (and hence, Wahhabi) group federal agents raided in May 25, 2004, resulting in the arrest of Ibrahim Abdullah, the current Vice-President of WAMY-USA. WAMY was among the 100-plus organizations that have operated out of the Grove Street facilities. As Kenneth R. Timmerman noted in a recent exposé, “Until the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the head of the WAMY office in Herndon was Abdullah bin Laden,” Osama bin Laden’s younger brother.

Totonji has also personal ties to Louis Farrakhan. At a February 2000 meeting with Farrakhan, Totonji presented each Nation of Islam imam with a gift set of eight books on Islam and voiced his hope that NOI would bolster Islam within North America. In 1996, Farrakhan traveled to Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria and Libya, where he denounced the United States alongside Muammar Qaddafi.

Nor has Farrakhan been the only black racist beneficiary of Totonji’s generosity. Totonji has made a $1,000 donation to the unsuccessful re-election campaign of Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-GA, as did others connected with the Safa Group. McKinney is best remembered for alleging President Bush had advance knowledge of 9/11; her father famously blamed McKinney’s woes on “Jews. J-E-W-S.” Taha al-Alwani, Hisham Al-Talib and Jamal Barzinji gave $500 apiece to McKinney.

ADAMS’s woes, however, are far from confined to one man. Brothers Omar and Muhammed Ashraf were also raided. Omar is a member of the ADAMS Project Committee and Executive Vice President of Sterling Management Group, Inc. Muhammed is ADAMS Legal Advisor and also an attorney to Abdurahman Alamoudi, who has been arrested for laundering Libyan money.

Iqbal Unus, Vice President of the Board of Trustees and an ADAMS Laws Committee member, was also Dean of Students at the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences (GSISS) in Leesburg, Virginia. He had his house raided in the same sweep, as did GSISS President Taha al-Alwani and Yaqub Mizra, President of the Sterling Management Group.

GSISS is one of only two schools authorized to train Muslim chaplains for the armed forces. (The other, the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council – which is a subgroup of the American Muslim Foundation and whose best known alumnus is Captain Yousef Yee – is also under investigation. The AMF was founded by none other than Abdurahman Alamoudi.)

ADAMS nurtures relationship with other suspect organizations as well. ADAMS is affiliated with Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a likely conduit for Saudi money that happens to control an estimated 80 percent of U.S. mosques. Terrorism expert Steven Emerson has written that ISNA “publishes a bi-monthly magazine, Islamic Horizons, which often champions militant Islamist doctrine, and it convenes annual conferences where Islamist militants have been given a platform to incite violence and promote hatred.”

In addition to ISNA, the ADAMS website also links to such Wahhabi organizations as CAIR, AMC and the Muslims Students Association.

However the invitation came about, it must be declined forthwith. President Ronald Reagan spent his lifetime fighting America’s totalitarian enemies. He does not deserve to have his funeral sullied by the presence of a man who may be associated with them.

Is this the same song that is being sung at the end of "Chariots of Fire"? If so, it's one of my favorites!

I don't think so. The one you are thinking of is a setting of William Blake's poem:

And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon England's mountains green?

And was the holy Lamb of God

On England's pleasant pastures seen?

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And did the Countenance Divine

Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded here

Among these dark Satanic mills?

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Bring me my bow of burning gold:

Bring me my arrows of desire:

Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!

Bring me my chariot of fire.

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I will not cease from mental fight,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green and pleasant land.

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