So much death, this Eastertide.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine. Et lux perpetua luceat eis. Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion, et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem. Exaudi orationem meam. Ad te omnis caro veniet.
Eternal rest grant them, Lord. And let perpetual light shine on them. A hymn, O God, becometh Thee in Zion, and a vow shall be paid to You in Jerusalem. Hear my prayer. All flesh shall come to Thee.
As we celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, our reconciliation to our Father, the restoration of hope, and the defeat of death and sin, the city and the world mourns our Pope, and all those suffering and dying around the world, in Myanmar, Israel and Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Togo, Tunisia, Sudan and South Sudan, Russia and Ukraine, Ethiopia, and in every nation.
What a blessing, to die and return to our Creator as we celebrate the octave of Easter. And what sorrow now engulfs the Church still on earth. The intermingling of joy, sorrow, hope, and mourning. For this is not our true and final home; we are strangers in this world, to the world. We are called to seek our Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit—the beauty of the Trinity, its familial formula, its binding of love, its oneness in three, strikes me—and to renounce this world and its fallenness. We are to be His angels, His messengers, His agents of profound and irrevocable transformation, in preparation for that final coming of Christ when the world is washed clean, when Heaven and Earth shall pass away and the New Jerusalem, the New City of Peace, will be established at last.
In paradisum deducant te angeli; in tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres, et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem. Chorus angelorum te suscipiat, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere æternam habeas requiem.
May the angels lead you into paradise; may the martyrs receive you at your arrival and lead you to the holy city Jerusalem. May choirs of angels receive you and with Lazarus, once a poor man, may you have eternal rest.
Let us pray for the soul of Pope Francis, for the soul of Julian, for all the souls that will see their Father today, for the holy souls in purgatory, that God welcomes them into His eternal rest, that they might return to their Father’s house and their true home: that glorious prize opened to us through the most precious Blood of Jesus, shed by the lash and the nail and the spear, and that wonderful hope given to us by his Resurrection and Ascension into heaven.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
From Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, three weeks before his death:
Farewell. Pray to Him for me as I pray to Him for you. I hope to see Him soon.
Grant us the grace that we, too, may hope to see You soon.
Alleluia.