Sermon 172

SERMO 172

On the Words of the Apostle (1 Thessalonians 4:12):
"Now we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers,"
On Those Who Are Asleep,
"THAT YOU MAY NOT GRIEVE, AS DO THE OTHERS WHO HAVE NO HOPE."
And on the Works of Mercy,
BY WHOM THE DEAD ARE HELPED

Sorrow for the dead, such as is prohibited.

The blessed Apostle admonishes us not to grieve for those who are asleep, that is, our dearest dead, as do others who have no hope, namely, the hope of resurrection and eternal incorruption. For it is for this reason that the most truthful custom of the Scriptures calls them "sleeping," so that when we hear "sleeping," we may not despair of their awakening. Hence it is also sung in the Psalm: Will he who sleeps not add that he will rise again? Therefore, there is a certain natural sadness about the dead for those who love them. For nature, not opinion, shudders at death. Nor would death have befallen man had it not been for the punishment that preceded the fault. Wherefore, if animals that are so created as to die each in its time flee from death and love life, how much more man, who was so created that if he had wished to live without sin, he would live without end? Hence it is necessary that we be sad when those whom we love depart from us by dying; because even if we know that they do not leave us forever, but go ahead of us by a little while, still the very death that nature flees, when it takes the beloved, saddens in us the affection of that very love. Therefore, the Apostle did not admonish us not to grieve; but, not as others who have no hope. We grieve, therefore, at the deaths of our loved ones out of the necessity of losing them, but with the hope of receiving them again. From this we are anguished, from that we are consoled; from this, infirmity affects, from that, faith restores; from this, human condition grieves, from that, divine promise heals.

Prayers and sacrifices and alms for the deceased.

Therefore, funeral pomp, processions of obsequies, the costly care of burial, the lavish construction of monuments, are all merely forms of consolation for the living, not aids for the dead. However, there should be no doubt that the dead are helped by the prayers of the holy Church, and the saving sacrifice, and alms that are given for their spirits; so that the Lord may deal more mercifully with them than their sins have deserved. For this reason, the whole Church observes the tradition handed down by the fathers, to pray for those who have died in the communion of the body and blood of Christ when they are commemorated during the sacrifice, and to remember that the offering is also made for them. When works of mercy are carried out in commemoration for them, who would doubt that they benefit those for whom prayers are not made in vain to God? There should be no doubt whatsoever that these act to the benefit of the dead; but only for those who lived in such a way before their deaths that these acts could be beneficial to them after death. For those who departed from their bodies without the faith that works through love, and its sacraments, these acts of piety by their people are in vain, as they lacked the pledge of these things while they were here, either not receiving or receiving in vain the grace of God, and storing up not mercy but wrath for themselves. Therefore, no new merits are acquired for the dead when their people do something good for them, but these acts are rendered to their preceding deeds. It availed them only while they were alive here, so that these acts might help them once they ceased to live here. And therefore, no one finishing this life can have anything beyond what he deserved within it after it.

Mourning and duties to be performed for the deceased.

Let, therefore, the pious hearts of the beloved be permitted to grieve for the deaths of their loved ones with a healing sorrow, and let them shed consolable tears in their mortal condition; which may soon be restrained by the joy of faith, whereby the faithful are believed, when they die, to depart from us for a little while, and to pass on to better things. Let brotherly services also comfort them, whether those rendered at funerals, or those applied to the grieving, lest there be a just complaint from those saying: I looked for someone who would grieve with me, and there was none; and for comforters, and found none. Let there be, as far as possible, care for the burial and the construction of tombs: because these too are reckoned among good works in the Holy Scriptures; not only in the bodies of the Patriarchs and other saints, and the human corpses of whomever might be lying deceased; but also in the body of the Lord himself, those who did these things are proclaimed and praised. Let people carry out these duties as their final service to their loved ones, and as alleviations for their own human sorrow. But let those things that aid the spirits of the deceased, offerings, prayers, alms, be bestowed much more diligently, urgently, and abundantly for their sake, who love their loved ones, dead in the flesh, not the spirit, not only carnally, but also spiritually.