Office of the Dead

Community Monthly Memorial of the Dead

We remember Fr. Mark Hartley ocso Mount Saint Bernard whose Funeral this morning.

… and anniversary of an neighbour associate, (his Cross).

Collect: For Brethren, Relatives and Benefactors

Lord God,

as you are the fount of mercy and wish all men to be saved:

have mercy then on our deceased brethren, relatives, associates and benefactors.

Through the intercession of Blessed Mary ever-virgin, and of all your saints, bring them to the fellowship of' eternal joy.

A READING ABOUT THE DEATH OF
A 12th.CENTURY MONK OF CLAIRVAUX.

There lived in the monastery of Clairvaux a monk called Alquirin who was skilled in the art of medicine, and so nobles and great men of that region were always asking his help and drawing him, unwilling and resisting, to many places. Yet he was always solicitous about the poor and needy and would go to any lengths to cure them. Not only did he treat their sicknesses and wounds, but he tended with his own hands their putrid flesh and ulcered limbs with such care that it was as if he were caring for the wounds of Christ. And this really was so, he did everything for Christ, and Christ received eve­rything he did as being done for him, so that at the end he could say to him what was said of those who do works of mercy, 'I was sick and you visited me'.

Having lived, this life in this praiseworthy manner, the time came when he would receive in eternity the reward of his labours and his works of mercy, and he fell ill and neared his end. His Abbot came to visit him, and asked him what he was doing and how he was. He replied, 'My Father all is very well with me, because I am going to my Lord.' The Abbot asked him: 'But are you not suffering in body and do you not fear the agony of death?’ The monk replied, ‘I look upon it all with tranquillity and joy, because I have received beforehand from the Lord the blessings of sweetness, and that has taken all sorrow from my heart and nearly all pain from my body.'

Then the Abbot asked him, 'I beg you, my dear brother, for the love of God and for our edification , tell us anything that God has revealed to you.'

To which he replied, 'Before you came in, I saw, miserable and unworthy though I am, the Lord Jesus who looked at me with a kind and serene expression and showed me the marks of his Passion’, saying "Lo your sins are taken away from before my face, Come and kiss my wounds which you have tended so often."

I was so strengthened by this promise that I do not now fear to die.'

(from an article in the Fairacres Chronicle Spring 1984. The Death of the Saints in some 12th (Century Sources by Sister Benedicta Ward. )

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Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance

(Trappists)

Obituary

Father Mark Hartley ocso

23 June 2010 : Father Mark Hartley. Born in 1935 in Staffordshire (Great Britain), he entered Mount St Bernard in 1954 and made his solemn profession in 1960. He was ordained priest in 1964. Father was 74 years old, had been in monastic vows for 53 years and 45 years a priest when the Lord called him.

Mount St Bernard Abbey