We do not want, brothers, that you ignore what concerns
to
the fate of the dead, so that you do not
you
grieve like the others who have no hope
This was the desire of the Apostle writing to
the first Christians; and that of the Church today is no other. Indeed, the
truth about the deceased does not only put in admirable light the agreement of
justice and goodness in God: the hardest hearts do not resist the charitable
mercy that this truth instills, at the same time that it provides the sweetest
consolations to the mourning of those who cry. If faith teaches us that there
is a purgatory, where unapologetic faults can retain those who were dear to us,
it is also of faith that we can help them, and it is theologically true that
their more or less prompt liberation is in our hands. Let us recall some
principles that can illustrate this doctrine.
THE ATONEMENT FOR
SIN. - Every sin causes
double damage on the sinner: it stains his soul and makes him worthy of
punishment. Venial sin simply does not please God and its atonement only lasts
for some time; but mortal sin is a stain that deforms the guilty person and
makes him an abomination before God; Its sanction, therefore, can only consist
of eternal exile, unless man achieves the revocation of the sentence in this
life. But, even in this case, the mortal guilt being erased and the sentence of
condemnation being therefore revoked, the converted sinner is not free from all
debt; although sometimes it can happen; As commonly happens in baptism or
martyrdom, that an extraordinary overflow of grace on the prodigal son succeeds
in making the last vestige and the tiniest relics of sin disappear into the abyss
of divine oblivion, the normal thing is that in this life or on the other,
justice demands satisfaction for any fault.
THE MERIT. —Every supernatural act of virtue, as
opposed to sin, implies double utility for the just; with him the soul deserves
a new degree of grace; It satisfies for the penalty due to past offenses
according to the just equivalence that according to God corresponds to work,
deprivation, to the accepted test, to the voluntary suffering of one of the
members of his most expensive Son. Now, as the merit is not transferred and is
something personal to the person who acquires it, thus, on the contrary,
satisfaction, as exchange value, lends itself to spiritual transactions; God is
pleased to accept it as a partial payment or account balance in favor of
another, be it the concessionaire of this world or the other, with the sole
condition that he belongs by grace to the mystical body of the Lord who is one
in charity. It is the consequence, as Suárez explains in his treatise on
Suffrages, of the mystery of the Communion of Saints, which is manifested to us
these days: "I believe that this satisfaction of the living in favor of the
deceased is worth in justice and that It is infallibly accepted in all its
value and according to the intention of the one who applies it, so that, for
example, if the satisfaction that corresponds to me was worth me in justice,
perceiving it, the forgiveness of four degrees of purgatory, the same is true.
forgive the soul for whom I offer it. "
INDULGENCES. - It is known how the Church supports the good will of her children on
this point. Through the practice of Indulgences, he places at the disposal of
his charity the inexhaustible treasure where the abundant satisfactions of the
Saints are successively joined with those of the Martyrs, and also with those
of Our Lady and with the infinite accumulation due to sufferings. of Christ.
She almost always sees well and allows the remission of the penalty, which she
grants directly to the living, to be applied by way of suffrage to the
deceased, who no longer depend on her jurisdiction. This means that each one of
the faithful can offer for another to God, who accepts him, the suffrage or
help of his own satisfactions, in the way that we have just seen. Such is the
doctrine of Suárez, who also teaches that the indulgence that is given to the
deceased does not lose any of the certainty or value that it would have for us
who still belong to the militant Church. Now, Indulgences are offered to us in
a thousand ways and on a thousand occasions. Let us know how to use our
treasures and let us practice mercy with the poor souls who suffer in
purgatory. Can there be more compassionate misery than yours? So poignant is
it, that there is no misfortune in this life that can be compared. And they
suffer it so nobly that no complaint disturbs the silence of "that river
of fire that in its imperceptible course drags them little by little to the
ocean of paradise." Heaven is of no use to them; there it no longer
deserves. God himself, very good, but also very just, has forced himself not to
grant them their release if they do not fully pay the debt that they carried
with them when they left this world of trial. It is possible that this debt was
incurred through our fault or with our cooperation; and that is why they return
to us, who continue to dream of pleasures while they embrace each other, when
it is so easy for us to abbreviate their torments. Have mercy, have mercy on
me, even you, my friends, for the hand of the Lord has hurt me.
THE PRAYER FOR THE
SOULS IN PURGATORY. -
As if purgatory saw its prisons overflow more than ever with the influx of
multitudes that the worldliness of the present century launches there every day
and perhaps also due to the proximity of the final and universal current
account that will end time, the Spirit Santo no longer suffice to support the
zeal of the ancient brotherhoods consecrated in the Church at the service of
the dead; The Church raises up new associations and even religious families,
whose exclusive purpose is to promote by all means the liberation or relief of
souls from purgatory. In this work, which is a kind of redemption of captives,
there are also Christians who expose themselves and offer to carry on
themselves the chains of their brothers, freely and voluntarily renouncing not
only their own satisfactions, but also their suffrages from which they could
benefit after death; heroic act of charity not to be done lightly, but approved
by the Church; This act gives God much glory and, in the case of a temporary
delay in beatitude, it deserves its author to be closer to God forever, from
now on by grace and later, in heaven, by glory. And if the suffrages of a
single faithful are so valuable, how much more will those of the whole Church
have in the solemnity of public prayer and in the oblation of the august
Sacrifice in which God himself satisfies God for all faults! The Church, from
its origin, always prayed for the deceased, as the Synagogue did before. Just
as he celebrated the anniversary of his martyred sons with thanksgiving, so he
also honored with supplications that of his other sons, who perhaps were not
yet in heaven. Daily the names of one and the other were pronounced in the
Sacred Mysteries for the double purpose of praise and prayer; And, just as by
not being able to remember in each particular church each one of the blessed of
the whole world, he included them all in a feast and in a common mention, so in
the same way he made a general commemoration of the deceased everywhere and everyone.
the days following the particular commemorations. There was no shortage of
votes, either, St. Augustine observes, for those who had no relatives or
friends; They had to remedy their helplessness, the affection of the common
Mother.
SAN ODILÓN. - Since the Church followed the same
process from the beginning with respect to the memory of the blessed and that
of the souls in purgatory, it was to be expected that the institution of the
Feast of All Saints would soon claim the current Commemoration of the faithful
departed. According to the Chronicle of Sigebert de Gemblaux, the Abbot of
Cluny Saint Odilón instituted it in 998 in all the monasteries that depended on
him, to celebrate it perpetually on the day after all Saints. This is how he
responded to the accusations that denounced him and his monks, in visions that
are read in his Life, as the most intrepid helpers of the souls that are
purified in the place of atonement, and also as the most fearsome for the
powers. infernal. The world applauded the decree of San Odilón. Rome made it
its own and it became the law of the entire Latin Church. The Greeks make a
first general Commemoration of the dead on the eve of our Sixtieth Sunday,
which is for them the Carnestolendas or Apocrypha, in which they celebrate the
second coming of the Lord. They call this day Saturday of souls, as well as the
Saturday that precedes Pentecost, when they solemnly pray for all the dead.
MASS OF THE
DECEASED
The
Roman Church formerly had double duty on this day in its daily service to the
divine Majesty. The memory of the deceased did not allow her to forget the
Eighth of All Saints. The office of the second day of this Octave preceded that
of the dead; at the time of Tercia de Todos os Santos, the corresponding Mass
followed; and after Nona of the same office, he offered the Sacrifice of the
altar for the dead. In our days, requested by charity for the most numerous and
most destitute poor souls, today she dedicates all her canonical Hours and only
after Nona, which is followed by the solemn mass for the dead, does she take up
the office of Saints again. in the. The eve of the second of November. As for
the obligation to keep a feast on Souls' Day, it was only semi-accepted in
England, where the most necessary jobs were allowed; in many places the
cessation of work did not exceed half the day; in others, only attendance at
mass was prescribed. Paris observed for some time the second of November as a
feast of first obligation: in 1673 Archbishop Francis de Harlay still
maintained in his statutes the mandate to keep it until noon. Today even in
Rome there is no obligation.
The antiphon of the Introit is nothing more
than the compelling supplication that, in the office of the dead, supplies any
other doxology; it is taken from a passage in the fourth book of Ezra. The
second psalm of Lauds gives us the verse.
INTROITE
Give
them, Lord, eternal rest: and let everlasting light shine for them. Psalm: To
you, O God, praise is due in Zion, to you will be given vows in Jerusalem: hear
my prayer, to you will all men go.
In the Collection the Church implores, on
behalf of suffering souls, the mercy of her Spouse, of God made Man, whom she
calls Creator and Redeemer, titles that say all that these souls cost her and
invite her to give the last hand to his work.
COLLECTION
O
God, Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful: grant to the souls of your
servants and handmaids the forgiveness of all sins; so that, by our pious
supplications, they may obtain the indulgence they have always longed for. You,
who live.
EPISTLE
Lesson
from the Epistle of the Rev. S. Paul to the Corinthians (I Cor., XV, 51-57).
Brothers:
Here is a mystery that I tell you: We will all be resurrected certainly, but
not all of us will be transformed. In a moment, in the blink of an eye, to the
sound of the last trumpet: because the first trumpet will sound, and the dead
will rise uncorrupted: and we will be transformed. For this corruptible must
clothe itself with incorruption: and this mortal must clothe itself with
immortality. But when this mortal has clothed himself with immortality, then
the written word will be fulfilled: Death was absorbed by victory. Where is, oh
die, your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? For the sting of death is
sin; and the force of sin is the Law. But thanks be to God, who gave us the
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
DEATH AND
RESURRECTION. - While the soul,
when leaving this world, makes up in purgatory the insufficiency of its
expiations, the body it left returns to earth to fulfill the sentence thrown
against Adam and his race at the beginning of the world. But justice is love
for both the body and the soul of the Christian. The humiliation of the grave
is just punishment for the original fault; More in this return of man to the
dust of the earth from which he was formed, Saint Paul also makes us see the
sowing necessary for the transformation of the predestined grain, which one day
has to live again in very different conditions. Indeed, flesh and blood cannot
possess the kingdom of God, nor can those who are subject to corruption aspire
to immortality. Candeal wheat of Christ, according to the word of Saint
Ignatius of Antioch, the body of the Christian is thrown into the furrow of the
tomb to leave in it what was corruptible, the shape of the first Adam with his
weakness and heaviness; but, by virtue of the new Adam, who reshapes him in his
own image, he will emerge completely heavenly and spiritualized, agile,
impassive and glorious. Glory to him who only wanted to die like us to destroy
death and make his victory our victory.
The
Church continues to ask insistently in the Gradual for the liberation of the
deceased.
GRADUAL
Give
them, Lord, eternal rest: and let everlasting light shine for them. 7. The
righteous will leave an eternal memory: they will not fear bad news.
TRACT
Absolve,
Lord, the souls of all the faithful departed from all bonds of sin. J. And,
your grace helping them, they deserve to avoid the judgment of vengeance. And
enjoy the bliss of eternal light.
The Church formerly did not exclude Ale luya
from the funerals of its children; He expressed his joy founded on the hope
that a holy death had just assured one more elect to heaven, even though the
atonement of the Christian whose life of trial was ending could be prolonged
for some time. However, the adaptation of the liturgy for the dead to the rites
of the last days of Holy Week, although it modified old customs at this point,
did not want to exclude the Sequence from the Mass for the dead, which was
originally a composition of character. festive and a continuation of the
Hallelujah Rome towards an exception to the traditional rules, in favor of the
poem erroneously attributed to Tomás de Celano. In Italy the Dies irae was sung
since the fourteenth century and the whole Church adopted it in the sixteenth
century.
SEQUENCE
1.
The day of Wrath, the day that will dissolve the world
in
ash: witness is David with the Sibyl.
2.How
much fear will there be then, when it occurs
The
judge to discuss everything rigorously!
3.
The trumpet, casting its sound through the graves
of
the earth, will bring to the throne all.
4.
Death and nature will be astonished when he resuscitates
the
creature, to respond to the Judge.
5.
The written book will be opened, in which everything is contained,
by
which the world will be judged.
6.
When, then, the Judge sits down, everything will appear
the
hidden: nothing will be unveiled.
7.
What will I say then, motherfucker? What patron
I
will invoke, when only the righteous will be safe?
8.
King of tremendous majesty, that the good ones
save
free, save me, source of mercy.
9.
Remember, merciful Jesus, that I am of your way
the
cause: don't lose me on that day.
10.
Looking for me, you sat down tired: you redeemed me
suffering
the cross: not be useless so much work.
11.
Righteous Judge of vengeance, give the grace of
sorry
before the day of the account.
12.
I groan like a true criminal: with guilt he reddens
my
face: forgive, oh God, the one who begs.
13.
You, who absolved Maria and listened to the J
good
thief, you gave me hope. -j
14.
My prayers are not worthy: but you do,!
good
and benign, let it not burn in a perennial fire.
15.
Place me among the sheep, and separate me from the
kids,
putting myself on the right hand side.
16.
Disproved the damned, applied the cruel
flames:
take me to the blessed.
17.
I beg you, humble and submissive, my heart, as
ash,
undone: Beware of my end.
18.
That tearful day, when it will rise from the dust
the
man to be tried.
19.
Forgive this man, oh God, oh godly
Lord
Jesus, give them rest. Ame
GOSPEL
Continuation
of the holy Gospel according to St. John
(Jn.,
V, 25-29).
At
that time Jesus said to the mobs of the Jews: Truly, truly, I tell you, the
hour has come, and it is now, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of
God: and those who hear it will live. . For, as the Father has life in himself,
so he gave the Son also to have life in himself: and he has given him power to
judge, because he is the Son of man. Do not marvel at this, because the hour is
coming when all who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God; and
those who did well will go to the resurrection of life and those who did wrong,
to the resurrection of judgment.
THE VOICE OF THE JUDGE.
- Purgatory is not eternal. Its duration is infinitely different
according to the sentences of the particular trial that follows the death of
each one; For certain souls who are more guilty or who, excluded from the
Catholic communion, are deprived of the suffrages of the Church, it can extend
to entire centuries, even if divine mercy deigns to deliver them from hell. But
at the end of the world and all that is temporary, purgatory has to be closed.
God will know how to reconcile his justice and his grace in the purification of
the last comers of the human race, supplying, v. gr., with the intensity of the
expiatory penalty which could be lacking in the duration. But, as regards
beatitude, while the sentences of the particular trial are frequently
suspensive and delaying and provisionally leave the body of the elect and of
the condemned to the common fate of burial, the universal judgment will have a
definitive character both for the heaven as for hell, and their sentences will
be absolute and will be executed instantly in their entirety. Let us therefore
live in expectation of the solemn hour when the dead will hear the voice of the
Son of God. He who has to come will come and will not delay, the Doctor of the
People reminds us; His day will come quickly and unexpectedly like a thief,
they tell us with him, the Prince of the Apostles and John the beloved
disciple, echoing the word of Jesus Christ himself: as the lightning comes from
the east and shines to the west, so it will be. the coming of the Son of Man.
Let us assimilate the sentiments expressed in the Offertory of the dead.
Although the blessed souls in purgatory are forever assured of eternal bliss and
they know it well, with all this, the more or less long road that leads them to
heaven, opens between the danger of the last diabolical assault and the anguish
of judgment.
The
Church, then, encompassing with her prayers all the stages of this painful
path, walks solicitously so as not to neglect the entrance; and he is not
afraid to be too late for that. For God, whose gaze encompasses all times, the
supplication that the Church makes today was already present at the moment of
the tremendous step and was procuring the help that is asked here for souls.
Furthermore, this same supplication follows her through the ups and downs of
her struggle against the powers of the abyss, which God uses as instruments in
the atonement demanded by his justice, as the Saints have verified more than
once. In this solemn hour, when the Church presents her offerings for the
august and omnipotent Sacrifice, let us also redouble our prayers for the deceased.
Let us plead for their release from the lion's jaws. Let us supplicate the
glorious Archangel, superior of paradise, support of souls as they leave this
world, his guide sent "by God, to lead them to light, to life, to God
himself, who was promised as a reward to believers in the person of his father
Abraham.
OFFERTORY
Lord
Jesus Christ, King of Glory, deliver the souls of all the faithful departed
from the sorrows of hell and the deep lake: deliver them from the lion's mouth,
so that they are not absorbed by Tartar, nor do they fall into darkness: but
that the Standard bearer Saint Michael present them in the holy light: That you
promised in another time to Abraham and his descendants, and Offer yourself,
Lord, hosts and prayers of praise: you accept them for those souls whose memory
we celebrate today: make them, Lord, pass from death to life: That you promised
once to Abraham and his descendants. Faith, whose works they practiced, is a
guarantee for the souls in purgatory of the last reward and that which makes
God propitious before the gifts offered in their behalf.
SECRET
We
beg you, Lord, look propitious at these hosts that we offer you for the souls
of your servants and handmaids: so that, to those you gave the merit of the
Christian faith, you also give them the reward. Through our Lord Jesus Christ.
PREFACE
It
is truly worthy and just, equitable and healthy that we always and everywhere
give thanks to you, holy Lord. Almighty Father, Eternal God, through Christ our
Lord. In whom the hope of a blessed resurrection shone for us, so that those
who are saddened by the certainty of having to die may be consoled by the
promise of future immortality. Because your servants. Lord, life is changed
from them, it is not taken from them: and, the house of this earthly abode
crumbling, they reach an eternal mansion in heaven. And, therefore, with the
Angels and the Archangels, with the Thrones and the Dominations, and with the
entire army of the celestial militia, we sing the hymn of your glory, saying
without ceasing: Holy, Holy, Holy, etc.
At
the Agnus Dei, the request for rest for the dead replaces the request for peace
for the living.
Lamb
of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
give
them rest.
Lamb
of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
give
them rest.
Lamb
of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
give
them everlasting rest.
As the silent flakes of abundant snow fall on
a winter day, so liberated souls rise white and peaceful, now when all over the
world, at the end of its long prayers, the Church pours redemptive blood over
the expiatory flames. Strong facts with the courage given to our prayer by
participating in the sacred Mysteries, let's say with it in Communion:
COMMUNION
Shine
for them, Lord, the eternal light: With your Saints forever: because you are
pious. J. Give them, Lord, eternal rest: and let everlasting light shine on
them. With your Saints forever: because you are pious.
Such, however, is that, and so far above our
human thoughts the impenetrable and adorable mystery of God's justice, that for
some souls the atonement has yet to follow. The Church also, without tiring or
stopping waiting, continues her prayer in the Post-Communion. Holy Mother
Church will remember the deceased every day and at all Hours of Office, in all
Masses offered throughout the year, of whatever solemnity they may be.
POST-COMMUNION
We
beg you, Lord, make the prayer of those who beg you, take advantage of the
souls of your servants and servants: so that you free them from all sins and
make them participants in your redemption. You, who live.
The Benedicamus Domino, which serves as the
Ite missa is in the masses in which the Gloria in excelsis is suppressed, is
replaced in those of the deceased by an invocation in favor of the deceased:
Rest in peace. Amen.
THE THREE MASSES. - Here we do not give more than the text of the mass that is celebrated for
all the deceased faithful. Everyone can easily find in their missal the text of
the other two since 1915, thanks to the piety of Benedict XV, priests can
celebrate three Masses on this day: one of them, at the intention of the
celebrant, the second is said by the intentions of the Pope and the third for
all the faithful departed. Benedict XV wanted to help with this generosity not
only the thousands and thousands who fell on the battlefields during the war,
but also the souls whose foundations of masses had been stolen by the
Revolution and the confiscation of ecclesiastical property. More recently Pius
XI granted a plenary indulgence, applicable to the souls in purgatory, for a
visit to a cemetery on November 2 and any other day of the Eighth, but with the
condition of praying for the intentions of the Roman Pontiff.
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