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Mass for the Deceased Members of the Sovereign Military Order of
Malta
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In offering the Holy Sacrifice of the
Mass for the faithful departed, I am always inclined to
think that there are certain movements of the spirit which
are woven through this liturgy. When we pray for the dead,
these movements of the spirit, as I like to call them, are
inseparable. I draw your attention to them individually only
to show how rich our experience of faith is.
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A first movement is remembrance. We
remember the dead. We call them to mind. This can be an
intensely personal experience when we call to mind loved
ones. In the case of your Order, you may well be able to
call to mind individuals and remember them and individuals.
But the scope of this act of remembrance goes beyond people
you know personally to those who shared the fellowship of
your Order, no matter how well you knew them or did not know
them. So first of all we call them to mind, recognising that
they were individuals like you and I. We remember them,
thanking God for their lives and especially for the blessing
they were to your Order.
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The second movement of the spirit is
prayer. To pray for the dead is a holy and devout thought,
says the Second Book of Maccabees. And Catholics have always
spontaneously commended the dead to God. We recognise in
faith that immediately after death, the soul comes before
God in a particular judgement. We know that no one is ready
to enjoy the vision of God without being purified and made
ready for the company of God and his saints. We pray that
the souls of the faithful departed may pass through this
purification, this purgatory of the divine love, so that
these souls may enter eternal peace, there to await the end
of the world, the judgement of the living and the dead and
the final resurrection.
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We cannot think of the death and eternal
destiny of our loved ones or companions without thinking of
our own death and eternal destiny. These last things should
inspire in us another movement of the spirit which might be
called conversion. Our contemplation of death and judgment
should draw us to a review of our lives and to resolve to
live the Gospel of Christ more faithfully, to love God truly
above all things and our neighbour as ourselves. Once, when
I was a young priest, I preached a homily at Mass on Mission
Sunday, naturally enough encouraging the people to support
the Missions as generously as possible. This was before the
present liturgical calendar pertained, and coincidentally,
the Gospel passage that Sunday was the scene of the Last
Judgement of Matthew 25 in which the impious ask the King
plaintively: “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a
stranger or naked, sick or in prison, and did not come to
your help?” And the King answered, “in so far as you
neglected to do this to one of the least of these, you
neglected to do it to me.” The parish priest told me later
that he had never had such a response for Mission Sunday!
Our Mass and our prayer for the faithful departed should
also be for us the reason for a renewal of our spiritual
lives.
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And the final movement of the spirit
associated with this liturgy is surely hope. The paschal
mystery of Christ death and resurrection is the source of
our hope in eternal life and in the resurrection of the
dead. St. Paul tells us: “We believe that Jesus died and
rose again, and that it will be the same for those who have
died in Jesus: God will bring them with him.” The Eucharist
is the sacrament of hope. The Lord tells us with emphasis,
“Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal
life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” And he
invites us to believe him when he says, “I am the
resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in me, even
though he dies he will live, and whoever lives and believes
in me will never die.” The person Jesus originally addressed
these words to was Martha, sister of Lazarus, whom Jesus
would save out of death. “Do you believe this, he said to
her”. And her response has become the response of the whole
Church: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the
Son of God, the one who was to come into this world.” And
with that faith, we offer this Mass for the salvation of the
faithful departed and of ourselves.
St. Catherine’s Convent, Edinburgh
8th November 2007
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