Purgatory! Purgatory!

I've just been to morning Mass at Carmel – only the prayers of the faithful dared mention the word "Purgatory", the priest who preached certainly didn't, but with wearisome circumlocution at last brought himself to allude to the idea that souls may well not rush immediately into Heaven.

Apparently a congregation of weekday Mass goers (not to blow one's own trumpet, but presumably slightly more self-motivated, dare I say more committed, a band of Catholics than those who go on Sundays only), not to mention the cloistered nuns, would have been scandalized by a more full-blooded reference to Catholic doctrine.

Purgatory!  I want to walk round like a madman shouting it from the rooftops!

Purgatory!

"There is a Purgatory" – as the Council of Trent defined.

Purgatory!

Whose least pain is greater far than the greatest pain of earth, as St Augustine averred.  (I was just reading of Soviet death camps last night, as it happens, not that that is at all the right comparison to make; for what God permits in His love for our purification is utterly distinct from what the cruel demonic hatred of man devises.)

Purgatory!

A most rational and consoling doctrine, as Dr Johnson observed.

Purgatory!

Whither we all shall go at length, if we escape Hell, assuming we are not martyred and sent to Heaven express.

Purgatory!

The fire of Divine love, as St Catherine of Genoa averred, makes waiting, yearning souls, detained till they be purified from all dross and stain, so burn and languish, that it is the very pain of Purgatory – intenser far than fire, but sweet. "Glad souls among sweet fires" as the hymnist sings.

Purgatory!

"And prayers... and Masses on earth, shall aid thee at the throne of the Most Highest", as the Angel sings to the soul of Gerontius as he is consigned to the purification of Purgatory, in Newman's great poem.  Let us haste to offer our suffrages for the Holy Souls in Purgatory!

Purgatory!

An honest glance over one's life reveals so many evils done, so many graces refused, by so hard a heart, still so hard, stubborn, well-nigh unregenerate, so bereft of charity, and so many sins expiated by no great penances at all... well may we hope for Purgatory, to cleanse and refine us in Love's fire.

Little Hours of All Souls in the Dominican Rite

Unlike in the Roman Breviary, in the Dominican the Little Hours for All Souls consist of the following: a silent sign of the Cross, then the festal psalms, that is, spread over Prime, Terce, Sext, and None, Psalms 53 and 118, the latter broken up into eleven parts, none with any doxology or Requiem, but with the antiphon Requiem æternam instead.  In contrast, the Roman Breviary, since the time of Pope St Pius X, appoints proper psalms for all these Hours, with no antiphon but the Requiem at the end of each psalm.  It may be seen that the Dominican practice more closely imitates the Office for the Easter Triduum.

At Prime alone, the Confiteor and Misereatur follow; at all the Little Hours, next is recited the versicles A porta inferi and Dominus vobiscum, with the Collect Fidelium and the concluding versicle Requiescant in pace.

At Pretiosa (answering to the second half, the so-called Chapter Office, of Roman Prime, after the Benedicamus Domino, and beginning with the Martyrology if in choir), to the contrary, all is done as on ordinary days, with even the Gloria Patri being used; while the proper Gospel passage appointed is taken from the Requiem Mass.  In the Roman Office, the corresponding part is drastically modified.

Finally, Compline is sung in its Sunday form, with no observation of All Souls whatsoever - whereas the Roman Compline for All Souls is conformed to the pattern of the day's other Hours, with proper psalms, entirely devoted to prayer for the dead.

It may be noted parenthetically that Dominican Matins, Lauds and Vespers for All Souls are utterly the same as their usual form – but for that the nine lessons at Matins are for this day wholly taken from St Augustine, and the final responsory, the fearful Libera me, is augmented with no less than five versicles, in true mediæval style.

Runabout

I had the itch to go out for a drive this afternoon, but rather overdid it... having spent close to six hours on the road, and covered over 400 km, I now think a good bushwalk would have been better! For the record, I drove down through the Midlands until I reached the Fingal Valley turnoff, then went up through Avoca, Fingal and St Mary's, turned down Elephant Pass but took the slightly easier St Mary's Pass through to the sunny East Coast, drove up to St Helens, but then, rather than take the Weldborough Pass through to Scottsdale, I retraced my route down past Scamander, then - rather than go up to St Mary's - I took the coast road down to Bicheno, then down cross-country toward Swansea (by this stage I was regretting my earlier enthusiasm), took the Lake Leake road through to Campbell Town, and finally returned north to Launceston via the Midlands Highway. The countryside was nice to see, but now I'm pooped.

View Larger Map

All of this faffing around puts me in mind of Newman's saying, "We walk to heaven backward".

As it's All Souls day, when not frantically zooming down the highway, I have been reading the Day Hours of this solemn Commemoration. Pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory!

Two Masses for All Souls

While I would have preferred to have won the trifecta, as it were, and heard all three Requiem Masses to-day, getting to two was pretty good really.

As is my settled custom, I said Lauds before work, and had the chance to pray the Little Hours at odd moments through the day, so that once I arrived at the Pro. I had but Matins, Vespers and Compline left - I have adopted, as the only workable solution, saying Matins out of order - and so I used the half-hour or so before the 5.30pm Mass to knock over Matins (tho' I had to wait till the Offertory to read Lesson ix &c.).  It was good to hear Mass, and plead the Holy Sacrifice.  My prayer at the Elevation was Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem (Sweet Jesus Lord, grant them rest).

After this Mass (which used the texts of the third Mass, BTW, since those of the first were reserved by rubric for the sung Mass, and at the morning Mass those of the second were used), there was time for a pause and to assemble with Rosemary, Catherine and Jeff as we awaited Justin to lead us in the Gregorian chant.  He having arrived, we had a quick quarter-hour practice, and then...

The sung Mass of Requiem for All the Faithful Departed began at 6.30pm.  The complete Proper and Ordinary were sung to their proper Gregorian music, as was the Libera me at the Absolution over the catafalque afterward.  

There is something so very great about the wonderful alternation in the chant between evocations of eternal rest, and of the fearful prospect of Judgement and Hellfire: the Introit, Gradual, Agnus Dei and Communion being among those emphasising the former (and by their simple melody the Kyrie and Sanctus stylistically belong with these), the Tract portrays both, while the Offertory, the Libera me and above all its brother the dread, pounding, magnificent Sequence depict the latter!  What triple hammer-strokes ring out in the Dies iræ!

The use of the simple or ferial tone for the Dominus vobiscum, Collect, Sursum corda, Preface and Pater noster also added to the sombre atmosphere surrounding this solemn Commemoration of the Dead, as did the black vestments.  At the end of Mass, we sang Newman's hymn for the Holy Souls; and I prayed Placebo, or Vespers of the Dead.

Fr Rowe preached very well on the Christian duty to visit the consecrated ground of cemeteries especially at this time of year, both as a moral tonic to fortify us in the true perception of temporal affairs as but passing things compared with our eternal destiny, and to act as a spur to heartfelt prayer for the souls of the faithful departed; for whom, during this octave, we may gain a plenary indulgence by devoutly visiting such burial places, and reciting fit prayers under the usual conditions.  A Christian grave (as his home and his very person, by the frequent use of the sign thereof) ought be adorned with the Cross or crucifix, signifying that we place our only hope in life and in death in the merits of Christ crucified.  While it is religious and decent to erect a fitting funerary monument, all vain pomp ought be eschewed, and the monies therefor better spent on charitable alms for the poor and Mass stipends for the dead.  A better and more lasting monument, better than all workmanship in the world, is to leave behind the testimony of a good life spent in good works for the betterment of oneself, one's family, and all mankind, which witness is the earthly shadow of, please God, the eternal merits stored up in life and due to be eternally rewarded by the Lord in heaven.  Again, it is most laudable to decorate the graves of loved ones with flowers, which themselves bespeak at once the frail brevity of life and its passing beauty (for life is as a mist that appears and then vanishes - cf. James iv, 15), the sadness of this transient state (O lachrymæ rerum!), and the need to be in one's life "the good odour of Christ" (II Cor. ii,15).

******

It being also Rosemary's birthday, half a dozen of us joined her for dinner at a nearby restaurant afterward: ad multos annos.

Beware

As I've gradually prayed the Office of All Saints, the little chapter for Vespers, Lauds and Terce  - Ecce ego - has been provoking my thoughts.  

Now, it must be understood that the little chapter for each of the day Hours of feasts - excepting Prime and Compline, which have invariable readings proper to themselves - is an extract from the Epistle, usually, of the Mass, but arranged in such a way that only three extracts are given, two being used only once, at Sext and None respectively, and one being on the contrary repeated at the cardinal Hours of Lauds and Vespers, and moreover at Terce, which is traditionally an important Hour, as ideally it should be sung directly before High Mass.

The reason Ecce ego (Apoc. vii, 2-3) has exercised itself upon me is that its message is so pointed and arresting, especially for such a backslider as myself; here is what I've read, and my rendering of it:

Ecce ego Joannes vidi alterum Angelum ascendentem ab ortu solis, habentem signum Dei vivi; et clamavit voce magna quatuor Angelis, quibus datum est nocere terræ et mari, dicens: Nolite nocere terræ et mari neque arboribus, quoadusque signemus servos Dei nostri in frontibus eorum.

(Behold, I, John, beheld an other Angel ascending from the rising sun, having the seal of the living God; and he cried with a great voice to the four Angels, to whom it was given to harm the earth and the sea, saying: Do no harm to the land and the sea nor to the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.)

The scene, you see, is directly before at the Divine command those four angels are loosed to smite the world for its ungodliness and evil - and the allusion throughout is very evidently to the like scene in Ezechiel chapter ix, where an angel goes about sinful Jerusalem marking the saving sign of the tau cross (presage of the Lord's Cross, the sphragis or seal with which we are marked for Christ at our Baptism) on those faithful to the Lord, directly before God's dread angels go out to slay all the wicked in that city!

How terrible shall be the last days - and we have been in them from the death and rising of Christ, they endure until the End - beyond the endurance of any unless God (as He promises) shorten them, when even the just shall scarce be saved: what then of the wicked and the sinner, the reprobate and the spurner of grace, the man worthy of perdition and fitted for hell?  What of me?

The responsories, great and sobering, of Matins of the Dead (Placebo) we shall read, and pray God take to heart, on Monday, the translated Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed: they sum up what should be our prayer when confronted with this truth.

I'll go to confession before Mass this Sunday morning!!!