Purgatory by Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

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REMEMBRANCE OF THE DEAD THROUGHOUT EUROPE.

PART II.

In Austria we find an example of devotion to the dead, in the saintly
Empress Eleanor, who, after the death of her husband, the Emperor
Leopold, in 1705, was wont to pray two hours every day for the eternal
repose of his soul. Not less touching is an account given by a
Protestant traveller of an humble pair, whom he encountered at Prague
during his wanderings there. They were father and daughter, and
attached, the one as bell-ringer, the other as laundress, to the Church
on the Visschrad. He found them in their little dwelling. It was on the
festival of St. Anne, when all Prague was making merry. The girl said
to him: "Father and I were just sitting together, and this being St.
Anne's Day, we were thinking of my mother, whose name was also Anne."
The father then said, addressing his daughter: "Thou shalt go down to
St. Jacob's to-morrow, and have a Mass read for thy mother, Anne." For
the mother who had been long years slumbering in the little cemetery
hard by. There is, something touching to me in this little incident,
for it tells how the pious memory of the beloved dead dwelt in these
simple hearts, dwells in the hearts of the people everywhere, as in
that of the pious empress, whose inconsolable sorrow found vent in long
hours of prayer for the departed.

In the will of Christopher Columbus there is special mention made of
the church which he desired should be erected at Concepcion, one of his
favorite places in the New World, so named by himself. In this church
he arranged that three Masses should be celebrated daily--the first in
honor of the Blessed Trinity; the second, in honor of the Immaculate
Conception; and the third for the faithful departed. This will was made
in May, 1506. The body of the great discoverer was laid in the earth,
to the lasting shame of the Spaniards, with but little other
remembrance than that which the Church gives to the meanest of her
children. The Franciscans, his first friends, as now his last,
accompanied his remains to the Cathedral Church of Valladolid, where a
Requiem Mass was sung, and his body laid in the vault of the
Observantines with but little pomp. Later on, however, the king, in
remorse for past neglect, or from whatever cause, had the body taken up
and transported with great pomp to Seville. There a Mass was sung, and
a solemn funeral service took place at the cathedral, whence the corpse
of the Admiral was conveyed beyond the Guadalquivir to St. Mary of the
Grottoes (Santa Maria de las Grutas). But the remains of this most
wonderful of men were snatched from the silence of the Carthusian
cloister some ten years later, and taken thence to Castile, thence
again to San Domingo, where they were laid in the sanctuary of the
cathedral to the right of the main altar. Again they were disturbed and
taken on board the brigantine Discovery to the Island of Cuba, where
solemnly, once more, the Requiem for the Dead swelled out, filling with
awe the immense assembly, comprising, as we are told, all the civil and
military notables of the island.

In the annals of the Knight Hospitallers of St. John, it is recorded
that after a great and providential victory won by them over the Moslem
foe, and by the fruits of which Rhodes was saved from falling into the
hands of the enemy, the Grand Master D'Aubusson proceeded to the Church
of St. John to return thanks. And that he also caused the erection of
three churches in honor of Our Blessed Lady, and the Patron Saints of
the city. These three churches were endowed for prayers and Masses to
be offered in perpetuity for the souls of those who had fallen in
battle. This D'Aubusson was in all respects one of the most splendid
knights that Christendom has produced. A model of Christian knighthood,
he is unquestionably one of the greatest of the renowned Grand Masters
of St. John. There is a touching incident told in these same annals of
two knights, the Chevalier de Servieux, counted the most accomplished
gentleman of his day, and La Roche Pichelle. Both of them were not only
the flower of Christian knighthood, but model religious as well. They
died of wounds received in a sea fight off Saragossa in 1630, and on
their death-beds lay side by side in the same room, consoling and
exhorting each other, it being arranged between them, that whoever
survived the longest should offer all his pains for the relief of his
companion's soul.

We have now reached a part of our work, upon which we shall have
occasion to dwell at some length, and notwithstanding the fact that it
has already formed the subject of two preceding articles. It is that
which relates to England, and which is doubly interesting to Catholics,
as being the early record of what is now the chief Protestant nation of
Europe. To go back to those Anglo-Saxon days, which might be called in
some measure the golden age of Catholic faith in England, we shall see
what was the custom which prevailed at the moment of dissolution. In
the regulations which follow there is not question of a monarch nor a
public individual, nor of priest nor prelate, but simply of an ordinary
Christian just dead. "The moment he expired the bell was tolled. Its
solemn voice announced to the neighborhood that a Christian brother was
departed, and called on those who heard it to recommend his soul to the
mercy of his Creator. All were expected to join, privately, at least,
in this charitable office; and in monasteries, even if it were in the
dead of night, the inmates hastened from their beds to the church, and
sang a solemn dirge. The only persons excluded from the benefit of
these prayers were those who died avowedly in despair, or under the
sentence of excommunication.

"... Till the hour of burial, which was often delayed for some days to
allow time for the arrival of strangers from a distance, small parties
of monks or clergymen attended in rotation, either watching in silent
prayer by the corpse or chanting with subdued voice the funeral
service.... When the necessary preparations were completed, the body of
the deceased was placed on a bier or in a hearse. On it lay the book of
the Gospels, the code of his belief, and the cross, the emblem of his
hope. A pall of linen or silk was thrown over it till it reached the
place of interment. The friends were invited, strangers often deemed it
a duty to attend. The clergy walked in procession before, or divided
into two bodies, one on each side, singing a portion of the psalter and
generally bearing lights in their hands. As soon as they entered the
church the service for the dead was performed; a Mass of requiem
followed; the body was deposited in the grave, the sawlshot paid, and a
liberal donation distributed to the poor." [1]

[Footnote 1: "Lingard's Antiquities of the Anglo Saxon Church," Vol.
II, pp. 46-47.]

In the northern portico of the Cathedral of Canterbury was erected an
altar in honor of St. Gregory, where a Mass was offered every Saturday
for the souls of departed archbishops. We read that Oidilwald, King of
the Deiri, and son of King Oswald, founded a monastery that it might be
the place of his sepulture, because "he was confident of deriving great
benefit from the prayers of those who should serve the Lord in that
house." Dunwald the Thane, on his departure for Rome to carry thither
the alms of his dead master, King Ethelwald, A.D. 762, bequeathed a
dwelling in the market in Queengate to the Church of SS. Peter and Paul
for the benefit of the king's soul and his own soul.

As far back as the days of the good King Arthur, whose existence has
been so enshrouded in fable that many have come to believe him a myth,
we read that Queen Guenever II., of unhappy memory, having spent her
last years in repentance, was buried in Ambreabury, Wiltshire. The
place of her interment was a monastery erected by Aurelius Ambrose, the
uncle of King Arthur, "for the maintenance of three hundred monks to
pray for the souls of the British noblemen slain by Hengist." Upon her
tomb was inscribed, "in rude letters of massy gold," to quote the
ancient chronicler, the initials R. G. and the date 600 A.D.

In the Saxon annals Enfleda, the wife of Oswy, King of Northumbria,
plays a conspicuous part. Soon after her marriage, Oswin, her husband's
brother, consequently her cousin and brother-in-law, was slain. The
queen caused a monastery to be erected on the spot where he fell as a
reparation for her husband's fratricide, and as a propitiation for the
soul of the departed. This circumstance is alluded to by more than one
English poet, as also the monastery which Enfleda, for the same
purpose, caused to be erected at Tynemouth. Thus Harding:

"Queen Enfled, that was King Oswy's wife,
King Edwin, his daughter, full of goodnesse,
For Oswyn's soule a minster, in her life,
Made at Tynemouth, and for Oswy causeless
That hym so bee slaine and killed helpeless;
For she was kin to Oswy and Oswin,
As Bede in chronicle dooeth determyn."

The most eminent Catholic poet of our own day, Sir Aubrey de Vere, in
his Saxon legends, likewise refers to it. He describes first what

"Gentlest form kneels on the rain-washed ground,
From Giling's Keep a stone's throw. Whose those hands
Now pressed in anguish on a bursting heart.
... What purest mouth

"Presses a new-made grave, and through the blades
Of grass wind shaken, breathes her piteous prayer?
... Oswin's grave it is,
And she that o'er it kneels is Eanfleda,
Kinswoman of the noble dead, and wife
To Oswin's murderer--Oswy."

Again, describing the repentance of Oswy:

"One Winter night
From distant chase belated he returned,
And passed by Oswin's grave. The snow, new fallen,
Whitened the precinct. In the blast she knelt,
She heard him not draw nigh. She only beat
Her breast, and, praying, wept. Our sin! our sin!

"So came to him those words. They dragged him down:
He knelt beside his wife, and beat his breast,
And said, 'My sin! my sin!' Till earliest morn
Glimmered through sleet that twain wept on, prayed on:--
Was it the rising sun that lit at last
The fair face upward lifted?
....... Aloud she cried,
'Our prayer is heard: our penitence finds grace.'
Then added: 'Let it deepen till we die.
A monastery build we on this grave:
So from this grave, while fleet the years, that prayer
Shall rise both day and night, till Christ returns
To judge the world,--a prayer for him who died;
A prayer for one who sinned, but sins no more!'"

In the grant preserved in the Bodleian Collection, wherein Editha the
Good, the widow of Edward the Confessor, confers certain lands upon the
Church of St. Mary at Sarum, occurs the following:

"I, Editha, relict of King Edward, give to the support of the Canons of
St. Mary's Church, in Sarum, the lands of Secorstan, in Wiltshire, and
those of Forinanburn, to the Monastery of Wherwell, for the support of
the nuns serving God there, with the rights thereto belonging, for the
soul of King Edward." [1]

[Footnote 1: "Phillips' Account of Old Sarum."]

This queen was buried in Westminster Abbey, her remains being removed
from the north to the south side of St. Edward's shrine, on the
rebuilding of that edifice, and it is recorded that Henry III. ordered
a lamp to be kept burning perpetually at the tomb of Editha the Good.

It is related of the celebrated Lady Godiva of Coventry, the wife of
the wealthy and powerful Leofric, that on her death-bed she "bequeathed
a precious circlet of gems, which she wore round her neck, valued at
one hundred marks of silver (about two thousand pounds sterling) to the
Image of the Virgin in Coventry Abbey, praying that all who came
thither would say as many prayers as there were gems in it." [1]

[Footnote 1: Saxon Chronicle, Strickland's "Queens of England Before
the Conquest, etc."]

The following is an ancient verse, occurring in an old French treatise,
on the manner of behaving at table, wherein one is warned never to
arise from a meal without praying for the dead. This treatise was
translated by William Caxton.

"Priez Dieu pour les trepasses,
Et te souveigne en pitie
Qui de ce monde sont passez,
Ainsi que tu es obligez,
Priez Dieu pour les trepasses!"

[We subjoin a rough translation of the verse.

To God, for the departed, pray
And of those in pity think
Who have passed from this world away,
As, indeed, thou art bound to do,
To God, for the departed pray.]

Speaking of his early education, Caxton says:

"Whereof I humbly and heartily thank God, and am bounden to pray for my
father and mother's souls, who in my youth set me to school." [1]

[Footnote 1: "Christian Schools and Scholars."]

In 1067, William the Conqueror founded what was known as Battle Abbey,
which he gave to the Benedictine Monks, that they might pray for the
souls of those who fell in the Battle of Hastings. Speaking of William
the. Conqueror, it is not out of place to quote here these lines from
the pen of Mrs. Hemans:

"Lowly upon his bier
The royal Conqueror lay,
Baron and chief stood near,
Silent in war's array.
Down the long minster's aisle
Crowds mutely gazing stream'd,
Altar and tomb the while
Through mists of incense gleamed.

"They lowered him with the sound
Of requiems to repose."

These stanzas on the Burial of William the Conqueror lead us naturally
to others from the pen of the same gifted authoress on "Coeur de Lion
at the Bier of his Father."

"Torches were blazing clear,
Hymns pealing deep and slow,
Where a king lay stately on his bier,
In the Church of Fontevraud.

* * * * *

"The marble floor was swept
By many a long dark stole
As the kneeling priests, round him that slept,
Sang mass for the parted soul.
And solemn were the strains they pour'd
Through the stillness of the night,
With the cross above, and the crown and sword,
And the silent king in sight."

We forgive the ignorance of the gentle poetess with regard to the Mass,
for the beauty and solemnity of the verse, which is quite in keeping
with the nature of the subject.

We read, again, of tapers being lit at the tomb of Henry V., the noble
and chivalrous Henry of Monmouth, for one hundred years after his
death. The Reformation extinguished that gentle flame with many another
holy fire, both in England and throughout Christendom.

We shall now pass on to another period--a far different and most
troublous one of English history, that of the Reformation.

In the Church of St. Lawrence at Iswich is an entry of an offering made
to "pray for the souls of Robert Wolsey and his wife Joan, the father
and mother of the Dean of Lincoln," thereafter to be Cardinal and
Chancellor of the Kingdom. An argument urged to show the Protestantism
of Collet, one of the ante-Reformation worthies, is that he "did not
make a Popish will, having left no monies for Masses for his soul;
which shows that he did not believe in Purgatory." The dying prayer of
Sir Thomas More concludes with these words: "Give me a longing to be
with Thee; not for avoiding the calamities of this wicked world, nor so
much the pains of Purgatory or of hell; nor so much for the attaining
of the choice of heaven, in respect of mine own commodity, as even for
a very love of Thee." The unfortunate Anne Boleyn, who during her
imprisonment had repented and received the last sacraments from the
hands of Father Thirlwall, begs on the scaffold that the people may
pray for her. In her address to her ladies before leaving the Tower,
she concludes it by begging them to forget her not after death. "In
your prayers to the Lord Jesus forget not to pray for my soul." In the
account of the death of another of King Henry's wives, the Lady Jane
Seymour, who died, as Miss Strickland says, after having all the rites
of the Catholic Church administered to her, we read that Sir Richard
Gresham thus writes to Lord Cromwell:

"I have caused twelve hundred Masses to be offered up for the soul of
our most gracious Queen.... I think it right that there should also be
a solemn dirge and high Mass, and that the mayor and aldermen should
pray and offer up divers prayers for Her Grace's soul."

Anne of Cleves some two years before her death likewise embraced the
Catholic faith. At her funeral Mass was sung by Bonner, Bishop of
London, and many monks and seculars attended her obsequies. The
infamous Thomas Cromwell, converted, as it seems evident from
contemporary witnesses, on his death-bed, left what might be called
truly a "Popish will." After bequeathing money or effects to various
relatives and friends, he speaks of charity "works for the health of my
soul." "I will," he says, "that my executors shall sell said farm
(Carberry), and the money thereof to be employed in deeds of charity,
to prayer for my soul and all Christian souls." Item. "I will mine
executors shall conduct and hire a priest, being an honest person of
continent and good living, to sing (pray) for my soul for the space of
seven years next after my death." Item. "I give and bequeath to every
one of the five orders of Friars within the Citie of London, to pray
for my soul, twenty shillings. ..." He further bequeaths L20 to be
distributed amongst "poor householders, to pray for his soul."

In this he closely resembled his royal master, Henry VIII., who
ordained that Masses should be said "for his soul's health while the
world shall endure." And after his death it was agreed that the
obsequies should be conducted according to the observance of the
Catholic Church. Church-bells tolled and Masses were celebrated daily
throughout London. In the Privy Chamber, where the corpse was laid,
"lights and Divine service were said about him, with Masses, obsequies,
etc." After the body was removed to the chapel it was kept there twelve
days, with "Masses and dirges sung and said everyday." Norroy, king at
arms, stood each day at the choir door, saying: "Of your charity pray
for the soul of the high and mighty prince, our late sovereign lord and
king, Henry VIII." When the body was lowered into the grave we read of
a _De Profundis_ being read over it. God grant it was not all a
solemn mockery, this praying for the soul of him who was styled "the
first Protestant King of England," and who by his crimes separated
England from the unity of Christendom! May these "Popish practices,"
which were amongst those he in his ordinances condemned, have availed
him in that life beyond the grave, 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 AEternam_
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."

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