Mass: Monthly Commemoration of the Dead
On the day after the Solemnity of the Assumption we had our Monthly commemoration of the dead. Some thoughts were prompted by Fr. Thomas’s striking introduction to the Mass. It was brief and comprehensive.
On the day after the Solemnity of the Assumption we had our Monthly commemoration of the dead. Some thoughts were prompted by Fr. Thomas’s striking introduction to the Mass. It was brief and comprehensive.
“Introduction: This morning's Community Mass and today's Office is Sacrifice and Prayer for the recently dead of our Order, and our relatives and friends who have died. Their need of healing and of being purified in order to see God we call purgatory, a time when our intercession for them in faith and love can release the mercy of God towards them”.
Earlier we heard the 2nd Nocturne Reading of Thomas Merton. Anything he writes is so beautifully readable – the words flow smoothly and naturally. With all due respect to St Bernard, I am never that much at ease with the translations of the Mellifluous Doctor. (St. Bernard’s Solemnity is coming up in a few days and we may be given new lights on him by the Brother who will have the Chapter Sermon).
In the following passage, the words of Fr. Louis would put anyone at ease with the Catholic sense of prayer for the souls in purgatory.
Reading from Thomas Merton
Fr. Louis Speaks to us about Silence, Poverty and Death
IF, at the moment of our death, death comes to us as an unwelcome stranger, it will be because Christ also has always been to us an unwelcome stranger. For when death comes, Christ comes also, bringing us the everlasting life which He has bought for us by His own death. Those who love true life, 'therefore, frequently think about their death. Their life is full of a silence that is an anticipated victory over death. Silence, indeed, makes death our servant and even our friend. Thoughts and prayers that grow up out of the silent thought of death are like trees growing where there is water. They are strong thoughts that overcome the fear of misfortune because they have overcome passion and desire. They turn the face of our soul, in constant desire,' toward the face of Christ.A whole lifetime of silence is ordered to a final utterance; by this I do not mean that we must all contrive to die with pious speeches on our lips. It is not necessary that our last words should have some special or dramatic significance worthy of being written down. Every good faith, every death that hands us over from the uncertainties of this world to the unfailing peace and silence of the love of Christ, is itself an utterance and a conclusion. It says, either in words or without them, that it is good for life to come to its appointed end, for the body to return to dust and for the spirit to ascend to the Father, through the mercy of Our Lord Jesus Christ.A silent death may speak with more eloquent peace than a death punctuated by vivid expressions. A lonely death, a tragic death, may yet have more to say of the peace and mercy of Christ than many another comfortable death.For the eloquence of death is the eloquence of human poverty coming face to face with the riches of divine mercy. The more we are aware that our poverty is supremely great, the greater will be the meaning of our death: and the greater its poverty. For the saints are those who wanted to be poorest t in life, and who, above all else, exulted in the supreme poverty of death,
Fr. Louis Speaks to us about Silence, Poverty and Death
IF, at the moment of our death, death comes to us as an unwelcome stranger, it will be because Christ also has always been to us an unwelcome stranger. For when death comes, Christ comes also, bringing us the everlasting life which He has bought for us by His own death. Those who love true life, 'therefore, frequently think about their death. Their life is full of a silence that is an anticipated victory over death. Silence, indeed, makes death our servant and even our friend. Thoughts and prayers that grow up out of the silent thought of death are like trees growing where there is water. They are strong thoughts that overcome the fear of misfortune because they have overcome passion and desire. They turn the face of our soul, in constant desire,' toward the face of Christ.A whole lifetime of silence is ordered to a final utterance; by this I do not mean that we must all contrive to die with pious speeches on our lips. It is not necessary that our last words should have some special or dramatic significance worthy of being written down. Every good faith, every death that hands us over from the uncertainties of this world to the unfailing peace and silence of the love of Christ, is itself an utterance and a conclusion. It says, either in words or without them, that it is good for life to come to its appointed end, for the body to return to dust and for the spirit to ascend to the Father, through the mercy of Our Lord Jesus Christ.A silent death may speak with more eloquent peace than a death punctuated by vivid expressions. A lonely death, a tragic death, may yet have more to say of the peace and mercy of Christ than many another comfortable death.For the eloquence of death is the eloquence of human poverty coming face to face with the riches of divine mercy. The more we are aware that our poverty is supremely great, the greater will be the meaning of our death: and the greater its poverty. For the saints are those who wanted to be poorest t in life, and who, above all else, exulted in the supreme poverty of death,
I wonder where I can find the source reference for this passage from Merton’s books?
