Monthly Commemoration of the Dead. Night Office on Viaticum

Tuesday, 21 May 2013, Seventh Week of Ordinary Time

The Community Mass to morning  was celebrating the Mass for monthly commemoration of the recently deceased. * Comm. of the Dead, (Lk. 8:23-33, 38-43).

The prayer of the Faithful.

1. For the repentance of past sins

- that, with the good thief, we may receive from Christ the promise of entry into the kingdom of heaven,

2. ....

A Reading about Holy Viaticum,

from a Book by Fr. Jean Mouroux (Mystery of Time, NY 1964, p.317)

The Christian who is about to die is in the time-for-hope, cradled in the hands of the Christ-God. He insures our passage to the Father. And the most appropriate sign of this passage into the hands of God is Viaticum, the last communion on the tongue of the dying. Christ becomes the food for our journey, the remedy of life, the source of immortality, the living bread from heaven which leads us to Paradise. The Church takes the words of Jesus seriously: "He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood has everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day" (In 6,55). To receive Viaticum is "to die in the Lord" in the strictest sense of the word. It is to be led by the Way to the last cross road; by the Truth, to the last deceitful temptation; by the Life to apparent annihilation.

Thus we see that at the final lonely hour the Christian is surrounded by the Trinity and the family of God's children. This is the wondrous meaning of the prayer Profiscere: "Depart from the world, Christian soul, in the name of God the Father who created you; in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who suffered for you; in the name of the Holy Spirit who has been poured out on you." All the saints are there to protect and receive their brother; the Virgin Mary is there so that "he will no longer fear the terrors of death," but "go joyously to his Father's house in heaven"; the angels are present "to conduct him to paradise" and to push back "Satan and his devilish hordes" into "the abyss of eternal night"; SI. Joseph, the Patriarchs, the Martyrs and the other saints are there too. Because the King is there, the whole celestial army is there. The priest gives Viaticum and commends the soul to God. Through the invisible presence of these people, death in Christ and the Church proves to be a deeply sacred act filled with joy, sorrow, and peace. It is the last act of holy abandon by man's free will. Truly, "Blessed are the dead, who die in the Lord" (Ap 14- 13).