Last Tuesday, most of the attention in the United States was on the mid-term elections. But for Catholics (and some others) worldwide, Tuesday was also the Feast of All Souls or, more formally, the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed. It's the day on which we pause to remember in a special way family members and friends who have died.
Welcome to Brothers and Sisters, the weekly meetup for prayer* and community at Daily Kos. We put an asterisk on pray* to acknowledge that not everyone uses conventional religious language, but may want to share joys and concerns, or simply take solace in a meditative atmosphere. Anyone who comes in the spirit of mutual respect, warmth and healing is welcome.
Follow me below the fold for a bit more.
For most people, when they think of Catholic rituals around death, the first thing that pops to mind is the Requiem Mass or the Mass for the Dead. This is a bit ironic, since the modern rite specifies that the Mass to be celebrated for the dead in most circumstances is to be the Mass of the Resurrection, putting the emphasis on the promise given by Jesus to his disciples that ὁ πιστεύων ἔχει ζωὴν αἰώνιον...κἀγὼ ἀναστήσω αὐτὸν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ, "Those who believe will have eternal life ...and I will raise them up on the last day" (John 6:47, 54; my translation from the original Greek).
The old-style Requiem is known so well, though, because of the literally hundreds (or thousands) of settings that have been written over the centuries. Among the more famous settings of the Requiem are those of Mozart, Verdi, Fauré, and Byrd. One of the lesser-known (but reasonably typical) settings is that of Hector Berlioz (Requiem or Grande Messe des morts, Op. 5).
Berlioz wrote his Requiem in 1837 as a commemoration of the victims of the July Revolution of 1830. The word "Grande" in the title is entirely justified--Berlioz's original scoring called for woodwinds (4 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 English horns, 4 clarinets, 8 bassoons), brass (12 horns, 4 cornets, 4 tubas), percussion (16 timpani, 2 bass drums, 10 pair of cymbals, 4 tam-tams), four antiphonal brass choirs, one at each of the cardinal points (4 cornets, 4 trumpets, 2 tubas to the north; 4 trumpets and 4 trombones to the east and again to the west; and 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, and 4 tubas to the south), a mixed chorus of 80 sopranos, 60 tenors, and 70 basses (plus a tenor soloist), and strings (50 violins, 20 violas, 20 cellos, and 18 double basses)--and then indicated in his notes that these were only relative numbers and could, if enough performers were available, be doubled or even tripled. I particularly like his note in the score:
But in the event of an exceptionally large chorus, say 700 to 800 voices, the entire chorus should only be used for the Dies Irae, the Tuba Mirum, and the Lacrymosa, the rest of the movements being restricted to 400 voices.
This is the second part of the sequence Dies irae ("Day of wrath"):
The text is a little hard to make out over the ginormous orchestra and the extra brass, so here it is:
Tuba mirum spargens sonum
per sepulchra regionum
coget omnes ante thronum.
Mors stupebit et natura,
cum resurget creatura,
Iudicanti responsura.
Liber scriptus proferetur,
in quo totum continetur,
unde mundus iudicetur.
Iudex ergo cum sedebit
quidquid latet apparebit:
nil inultum remanebit.
Broadcasting [in the sense of "sowing"] a wondrous sound
among the tombs of [all] the lands,
the trumpet will summon all before the throne.
Death and nature will marvel
when creation rises
to respond to the Judge.
A written book will be brought forth,
containing everything,
from which the world shall be judged.
And so, when the Judge takes his seat,
whatever is hidden will appear,
and nothing will be left unpunished.
(My translation from the original Latin)
The brass is obviously a representation of the trumpet call that will "wake the dead in number," to borrow from "This Joyful Eastertide," a traditional Easter hymn. The timpani represent the earthquake that shakes them out of their graves in response to the call to judgement.
While I can appreciate the bombast of Berlioz's and Verdi's treatments, they're not a good match for my personal spirituality, which is more calm and contemplative in nature. Indeed, when I originally took this date for Brothers and Sisters, it was because I was due to be leaving for a week's retreat at a Trappist monastery near where I live, to revel in the quiet. I'm still going to do that, just a month later than originally planned--because I was accepted into an associate program there that will allow me both to stay a little longer with the monks and to enter a little more deeply into the rhythms of their life.
A better reflection of how I look at death comes from one of my favorite Renaissance composers, William Byrd. His setting (1605) of the gradual for the Feast of All Souls, Iustorum animae is one of the pieces I've chosen for my own funeral, and the text will be the first reading:
Iustorum animae in manu Dei sunt,
et non tanget illos tormentum mortis.
Visi sunt oculis insipientium mori,
illi autem sunt in pace.
The souls of the just are in the hand of God,
and the torment of death shall not touch them.
To the eyes of those who are without understanding they appeared to die;
nevertheless, they are at peace.
(My translation from the original Latin)
Whom shall we remember tonight, and for what else shall we pray*?