Purgatory, Mary Anne Madden Sadlier [books to get back into reading .txt] 📗

whither he went to give an account of his stewardship!

The Catholic Queen, Mary, after her accession to the throne, caused a requiem Mass to be sung in Tower Chapel for her brother, Edward the Sixth. Elizabeth, in her turn, had Mary buried with funeral hymn and Mass, and caused a solemn dirge and Mass of Requiem to be chanted for the soul of the Emperor Charles V.

With this period of spiritual anarchy and desolation we shall take our leave of England, passing on to pause for an instant to observe the peculiar cultus of the dead in Corsica. It is represented by some writers as being similar to that which prevailed amongst the Romans. But as a traveller remarks, "it is a curious relic of paganism, combined with Christian usages." Thus the dirge sung by women, their wild lamenting, their impassioned apostrophizing of the dead, their rhetorical declamation of his virtues, finds its analogy among many of the customs of pagan nations, while the prayer for the dead, "the relatives standing about the bed of death reciting the Rosary," the Confraternity of the Brothers of the Dead coming to convey the corpse to the church, where Mass is sung and the final absolution given, is eminently Christian and Catholic. In the Norwegian annals we read how Olaf the Saint, on the occasion of one of his battles, gave many marks of silver for the souls of his enemies who should fall in battle.

A traveller in Mexico relates the following: "I remember to have seen," he says, "on the high altar of the dismantled church of Yanhuitlan a skull as polished as ivory, which bore on the forehead the following inscription in Spanish:

'Io soy Jesus Pedro Sandoval; un Ave Maria y un Padre Nuestro, por Dios, hermanos!' [1]

[Footnote 1: Ferdinand Gregorovius, "Wanderings in Corsica," translated by Alexander Muir.]

'I am Jesus Pedro Sandoval; a Hail Mary and an Our Father for the love of God, my brother.'

"I cannot conceive," he continues, "anything more heart-rending than the great silent orbs of this dead man staring me fixedly in the face, whilst his head, bared by contact with the grave, sadly implored my prayers." [1]

[Footnote 1: "Deux Ans au Mexique," Faucher de St. Maurice.]

It would be impossible to conclude our olla podrida , if I may venture on the expression, of historical lore, relating to the dead, without referring, however briefly, to the two great deaths, and consequently the magnificent obsequies which have marked this very year of 1885, in which we write. Those of Archbishop Bourget, of Montreal, and of His Eminence, Cardinal McCloskey, of New York. They were both expressions of national sorrow, and the homage paid by sorrowing multitudes to true greatness. On the 10th of June, 1885, the venerable Archbishop Bourget died at Sault-au-Recollet, and was brought on the following morning to the Church of Notre Dame, Montreal. The days that ensued were all days of Requiem. Psalms were sung, and the office of the dead chanted by priests of all the religious orders in succession, by the various choirs of the city, by the secular clergy, and by lay societies. Archbishops and bishops sang high Mass with all the pomp of our holy ritual, and the prayers of the poor for him who had been their benefactor, mingled with those of the highest in the land, and followed the beloved remains from the bed of death whence they were taken down into the funeral vault. On the 10th of October, 1885, His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of New York passed peacefully away, amidst the grief of the whole community, both Protestant and Catholic. Again, there was a very ovation of prayer. The obsequies were marked by a splendor such as, according to a contemporary journal, had never before attended any ecclesiastical demonstration on this side of the water. The clergy, secular and religious, formed one vast assemblage, while layman vied with layman in showing honor to the dead, and in praying for the soul's repose. "All that man could do," says a prominent Catholic journal, "to bring honor to his bier was done, and in honor and remembrance his memory remains. All that Mother Church could offer as suffrage for his soul has been offered."

That is wherein the real beauty of it all consists. Honor to the great dead may, it is true, be the splendid expression of national sentiment. But in the eyes of faith it is meaningless. Other great men, deservedly honored by the nations, have passed away during this same year, but where was the prayer, accompanying them to the judgment-seat, assisting them in that other life, repairing their faults, purging away sins or imperfections? The grandeur that attended Mgr. Bourget's burial and Cardinal McCloskey's obsequies consisted chiefly in that vast symphony of prayer, which arose so harmoniously, and during so many days, for their soul's welfare.

Devotion to the dead, as we have seen, exists everywhere, is everywhere dear to the hearts of the people, from those first early worshippers, who, in the dawn of Christianity, in the dimness of the Catacombs prayed for the souls of their brethren in Christ, begging that they might "live in God," that God might refresh them, down through the ages to our own day, increasing as it goes in fervor and intensity. We meet with its records, written boldly, so to say, on the brow of nations, or in out-of-the-way corners, down among the people, in the littleness and obscurity of humble domestic annals. In the earliest liturgies, in the most ancient sacramentaries, there is the prayer for "refreshment, light, and peace," as it is now found in the missals used at the daily sacrifice, on the lips of the priest, in the prayers of the humblest and most unlettered petitioner. It is the "low murmur of the vale," changing, indeed, at times into the thunder on the mountain tops, amazing the unbelieving world which stands aloof and stares, as in the instances but lately quoted, or existing forgotten, and overlooked by them, but no less deep and solemn. It is a Requiem Æternam pervading all time, and ceasing only with time itself, when the Eternity of rest for the Church Militant has begun.


PRAYER FOR THE DEAD IN THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH.

DR. LINGARD.

The Anglo-Saxons had inherited from their teachers the practice of prayer for the dead - a practice common to every Christian Church which dates its origin from any period before the Reformation. It was not that they pretended to benefit by their prayers the blessed in heaven, or the reprobate in hell; but they had never heard of the doctrine which teaches that "every soul of man, passing out of the body, goeth immediately to one or other of those places" (Book of Homilies. Hom. VII. On Prayer). And therefore assuming that God will render to all according to their works, they believed that the souls of men dying in a state of less perfect virtue, though they might not be immediately admitted to the supreme felicity of the saints, would not, at least, be visited with the everlasting punishment of the wicked. [1] It was for such as these that they prayed, that if they were in a state of imperfect happiness, that happiness might be augmented; if in a state of temporary punishment, the severity of that punishment might be mitigated; and this they hoped to obtain from the mercy of God, in consideration of their prayers, fasts, and alms, and especially of the "oblation of the most Holy Victim in the Sacrifice of the Mass."

[Footnote 1: "Some souls proceed to rest after their departure; some go to punishment for that which they have done, and are often released by alms-deeds, but chiefly through the Mass, if it be offered for them; others are condemned to hell with the devil." (Serm. ad. Pop. in Oct. Pent.) "There be many places of punishment, in which souls suffer in proportion to their guilt before the general judgment, so that some of them are fully cleansed, and have nothing to suffer in that fire of the last day." (Hom. apud. Whelock, p. 386.)]

This was a favorite form of devotion with our ancestors. It came to them recommended by the practice of all antiquity; it was considered an act of the purest charity on behalf of those who could no longer pray for themselves; it enlisted in its favor the feelings of the survivor, who was thus enabled to intercede with God for his nearest and dearest friends, and it opened at the same time to the mourner a source of real consolation in the hour of bereavement and distress. It is true, indeed, that the petitioners knew not the state of the departed soul; he might be incapable of receiving any benefit from their prayers, but they reasoned, with St. Augustine, that, even so, the piety of their intentions would prove acceptable to God. When Alcuin heard that Edilthryde, a noble Saxon lady, lamented most bitterly the death of her son, he wrote to her from his retreat at Tours, in the following terms: - "Mourn not for him whom you cannot recall. If he be of God, instead of grieving that you have lost him, rejoice that he is gone to rest before you. Where there are two friends, I hold the death of the first preferable to that of the second, because the first leaves behind him one whose brotherly love will intercede for him daily, and whose tears will wash away the frailties of his life in this world. Be assured that your pious solicitude for the soul of your son will not be thrown away. It will benefit both you and him - you, because you exercise acts of hope and charity; him, because such acts will tend either to mitigate his sufferings, or to add to his happiness."

[Footnote 1: Ep. Cli Tom. I, p. 212.]

But they did not only pray for others, they were careful to secure for themselves, after their departure, the prayers of their friends. This they frequently solicited as a favor or recompense, and for this they entered into mutual compacts by which the survivor was bound to perform certain works of piety or charity for the soul of the deceased. Thus Beda begs of the monks of Lindisfarne that, at his death, they will offer prayers and Masses for him as one of their own body; thus Alcuin calls upon his former scholars at York to remember him in their prayers when it shall please God to withdraw him from this world; and thus in the multifarious correspondence of St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany, and of Lullus, his successor in the See of Mentz, both of them Anglo-Saxons, with their countrymen, prelates, abbots, thanes, and princes, we meet with letters the only object of which is to renew their previous engagements, and to transmit the names of their defunct associates. It is "our earnest wish," say the King of Kent and the Bishop of Rochester in their common letter to Lullus, "to recommend ourselves and our dearest relatives to your piety, that by your prayers we may be protected till we come to that life which knows no end. For what have we to do on earth but faithfully to exercise charity towards each other? Let us then agree, that when any among us enter the path which leads to another life (may it be a life of happiness), the survivors shall, by their alms and sacrifices, endeavor to assist him in his journey. We have sent you the names of our deceased relations, Irmige, Vorththry, and Dulicha, virgins dedicated to God, and beg that you will remember them in your prayers and oblations. On a similar occasion