BURIAL
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BURIAL
responsory, and some of these responsoriea in their
picturesque conciseness deserve to be reckoned among
the most striking portions of the liturgy. We may
quote for example the last responsory of the third
nocturn which occurs again before the absolution.
It is thus translated in the Roman Breviary of the
late Marquess of Bute:
"Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death in that awful day when the heavens and earth shall be shaken, and Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.
" Verse. Quaking and dread take hold upon me, when I look for the coming of the trial and the wrath to come.
" Answer. When the heavens and the earth shall be shaken.
" Verse. That day is a day of wrath, of wasteness and desolation, a great day and exceeding bitter.
" Answer. When Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.
" Verse. O Lord, grant them eternal rest, and let everlasting light shine upon them.
" Answer. Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death in that awful day, when the heavens and the earth shall be shaken and Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire." There seems reason to believe that this responsory is not of Roman origin (Batiffol, Roman Breviary, 198) but it is of considerable an- tiquity. At present, if the whole three nocturns (the second of which consists of Pss. xxii, xxiv, xxvi; and the third of Pss. xxxix, xl, and xli) are not said owing to lack of time or for any other cause, then another responsory, Libera me de viis inferni, is sung in place of that just quoted. Lauds follow imme- diately, in which the psalms Miserere and Te decet hymnus replace those usually said at the beginning and the Canticle of Ezechias is sung instead of the Benedicite. The Benedictus is recited with a special antiphon from John, xi, 25-26. This is familiar to many as having been retained in the burial service of the Church of England, "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die". Finally after certain preces follows the impressive collect Absolve, which is also said in the Mass, "Absolve, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the soul of thy servant N. that being dead to this world he may live to Thee, and whatever sins he may have committed in this life through human frailty, do Thou of Thy most merciful goodness forgive; through our Lord Jesus Christ", etc.
The "Rituale" directs that if all three nocturns of the office cannot be said, it would be desirable to say at least the first. But it is even more emphatic in urging that Mass should not be omitted except on certain privileged festivals of the highest class which exclude a Mass for the dead prcescnte cadavere, i. e. even when the body is present. These days include the feasts of Christmas, the Epiphany, Easter, the Ascension, Whitsunday, Corpus Christi, The An- nunciation, Assumption and Immaculate Conception, Nativity of St. John Baptist, St. Joseph, Sts. Peter and Paul, All Saints, the last three days of Holy Week, the Quarant' Ore, or Forty Hours, and cer- tain patronal feasts. On all other days, roughly speaking, the Church not only permits but greatly desires that the Holy Sacrifice should be offered for the deceased as the most solemn part of the rite of interment. To secure this the severer regulations of earlier centuries have in many respects been greatly relaxed in recenl times. For example it is not novs
of obligation that the Mass should he sung with
music. In the case of poor people w 1 1. > cannot de- fray the expenses incident to a Mass celebrated with solemnity, a simple low Mass of Requiem is permitted even on Sundays and other prohibited days, pro- vided that the parochial Mass of the Sunday be also
said at another hour. Moreover this one Missa in
die obitus sen depositionis may still be offered in such
cases, even when on account of contagious disease
or other serious reason the body cannot be brought
to the church. As in the case of the Office, the Mass
for the Dead is chiefly distinguished from ordinary
Masses by certain omissions. Some of these, for
example that of the Psalm Judica and of the blessings,
may be due to the fact that the Missa de Requie was
formerly regarded as supplementary to the Mass of
the day. In other cases, for instance in the absence of
hymns from the Office for the Dead, we may perhaps
suspect that these funeral rites have preserved the
tradition of a more primitive age. On the other hand,
the suppression of the Gloria in excelsis, etc., as of the
Gloria Patri seems to point to a sense of the incongru-
ity of joyful themes in the presence of God's searching
and inscrutable judgments. Thus a tractate of the
eighth or ninth century printed byMuratori (Lit.Rom.
Vet., II, 391) already directs that in the Vigils for
the Dead "Psalms and lessons with the Responsories
and Antiphons belonging to Matins are to be sung
without Alleluia. In the Masses also neither Gloria
in exelsis Deo nor Alleluia shall be sung." (Cf.
Ceriani, Circa obligationem Officii Defunctorum, 9.)
In the early Christian ages, however, it would seem that the Alleluia, especially in the East, was regarded as specially appropriate to funerals. Another omis- sion from the ordinary ritual of high Mass is that of the kiss of peace. This ceremony was always asso- ciated in idea with Holy Communion, and as Com- munion was not formerly distributed to the faithful at Masses for the Dead, the kiss of peace was not re- tained. A conspicuous feature of the Requiem Mass is the singing of the sequence, or hymn, "Dies ira". This masterpiece of medieval hymnology is of late introduction, as it was probably composed by the Franciscan Thomas of Celano in the thirteenth cen- tury. It was not designed for its present liturgical use but for private devotion — note the singular num- ber throughout, voca me cum benedictis, </ui<l sum miser tunc dicturus, etc., as also the awkwardness of the added pie Jesu Domine dona eis requiem, but the hymn appears printed in the "Missale Romanum" of 1485, though apparently not in the earlier edition of 1474. However the use of the "Dies irae " in con- nexion with the exsequicB montuorvm is much more ancient, and Dr. Ebner has found it, musically noted as at present, in a Franciscan Missal of the thirteenth century. (Ebner. Quellen und Forschungen zur Ges- chichte des Missale Romanum. 120). During the Mass it is customary, though not a matter of precept, to distribute tapers of unbleached wax to the congre- gation or at least to those assisting within the sanc- tuary. These are to be lighted during the Gospel, during the latter part of the Holy Sacrifice from the Elevation to the Communion, and during the abso- lution which follows the Mass. As already remarked the association of lights with Christian obsequies is very ancient, and liturgists here recognize a symbol- ical reference to baptism (the illumination, (pwriffnis) whereby Christians are made the children of Light, as well as a concrete reminder of the oft repeated prayer et lux perpetua luceat eis. (Cf. Thalhofer, Liturgik, II. 529.)
After Mass follows the absolution or AbsOUte, to use the convenient term by which the French desig- nate these special prayers for pardon over the corpse before it is laid in the grave. These prayers of the Absoute, like those said by the grave side, ought never to lie omitted. The subdeacon bearing the pro- cessional cross, and accompanied by the acolytes places himself at the head ol the coffin (i. e, facing the altar in the case of a layman, but between the coffin and the altar in the case of a priest), while the cele- brant, exchanging his black chasuble for a cope of the same colour, stands opposite at the foot. The
