Grant them eternal rest
All Souls Day: Fauré Requiem Mass
The music of Gabriel Fauré has inspired our liturgy for the Commemoration of All Souls this evening.
The Church’s annual day of All Souls follows the joyful feast of All Saints. Yesterday we were invited to contemplate heavenly glory, and our minds were stirred by the vision of heavenly glory given in the Book of the Apocalypse:
“After that I saw a huge number, impossible to count, of people from every nation, race, tribe and language; they were standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands.”
Now we are invited to consider those who have died and yet to experience heavenly glory. We follow the injunction of Sacred Scripture which says, “It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins.” (Macc 12:46)
From the very beginnings of the Church we find the instinctive attitude of Christians was to pray for those who have died. We see inscriptions on the walls of the catacombs to that effect.
The Church’s understanding of the fate of those who have died is expressed in the Catholic Catechism in these words:
“All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.
The Church gives the name purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned (CCC 1030).”
The Church’s prayers in the funeral liturgy, known as the Requiem Mass, have been the source of some of the most beautiful pieces of music produced in the Western tradition. The Requiem in D minor by Gabriel Fauré stands among them.
This work has sometimes been criticised for its serene nature. Other works have carried a greater sense of dread and anxiety at being cast into hellfire. The tradition of the Dies Irae, the Day of Wrath, is lacking in Fauré’s work.
He commented in response to these criticisms that his work was not prompted by personal loss or tragedy. He was church organist at the Madeleine in Paris and undertook the work as a personal endeavour. It was first performed at the funeral of an unknown parishioner.
His approach to the music was based in his own personal views about death. Thus, he said:
“It has been said that my Requiem does not express the fear of death and someone has called it a lullaby of death. But it is thus that I see death: as a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than as a painful experience.”
These are words of a man of faith. Yes, death is a human tragedy, and a source of loss and grief for those mourning the passing of a loved one, but the faith of the Christian is that, as the Liturgy itself expresses, “life is changed not ended”. Thus, many a Christian has faced death not with dread but with serene trust and a sense of peace.
The prayers for the dying express this with the simple words, “Go forth faithful Christian”. Jesus himself experienced great personal agony as he died on the cross, and yet was able to say in words of surrender: “Father into your hands I commend my spirit”. For the person of faith, death is the pathway to union with God, to the fullness of life.
The final piece of Fauré Requiem, In Paradisum, is a serene surrender into the hands of a loving God. Drawing on words from the Liturgy of the Church now used at the end of a Requiem Mass, the music carries the words in which the Church entrusts the deceased into the hands of God, “May the angels lead you into paradise…”
Such thoughts can cause us to reflect upon our own attitude to death. Do we approach it with fear or with a serene trust in God?
Whatever may be our personal sense of dying, the death of those we love prompts us to pray for the repose of their souls. On this Commemoration of All Souls, we are invited not just to be conscious of those who we have known and loved, but to join with the Church universal and pray for all souls in purgatory.
It is the Church on earth interceding for our brethren, the Church in purgatory.
The beautiful music tonight can stir our souls and inspire our prayer. In the simple yet beautiful plea to our Saviour and our hope, Jesus Christ, the Pie Jesu, which we will hear during the time of Holy Communion, we express our heartfelt plea: “Gentle Jesus, grant them rest, grant them rest, grant them eternal rest”.
This is our prayer for our departed loved ones, this is our prayer for all the faithful departed who await entry into the glory of heaven.
Archbishop Julian Porteous
Thursday, 2 November 2023