Purgatory by Mary Anne Madden Sadlier (ebook reader 8 inch txt) 📖

of Robert Bruce, the tombs of many bishops, abbots, and of the great chiefs and nobles, the Macdougalls, Lords of Lorn; the Macdonalds, Lords of the Isles; the Macleods, and the Macleans. Nowhere, perhaps, has death placed his seal on a more imposing assemblage, of truly royal stateliness, of astonishingly cosmopolitan variety. In the midst of it all, in the very centre of the burying-ground, stands a ruined chapel, under the invocation of St. Oran, the first Irish monk who died in this region. The church was built by the sainted Margaret, the wife of Malcolm Canmore, and the mother of St. David. Its mission there was obvious. From its altar arose to the Most High, the solemn celebration of the dread mysteries, the psalm and the prayer, for prince and for prelate, for the great alike in the spiritual and temporal hierarchy.

The Duke of Argyle, in his work on Iona, seems astonished to find that St. Columba believed in all the principal truths of Catholic faith, amongst others, prayers for the dead, and yet he considers that he could not be called a Catholic. The process of reasoning is a curious one.

Mention is made in the history of Scotland of a famous bell, preserved at Glasgow until the Reformation. It was supposed to have been brought from Rome by St. Kentigern, and was popularly called "St. Mungo's Bell." It was tolled through the city to invite the citizens to pray for the repose of departed souls.

In the great cathedrals of Scotland, before the Reformation, private chapels and altars were endowed for the relief of the dead, while in the cities and large towns, each trade or corporation had an altar in the principal churches and supported a chaplain to offer up Masses and prayers as well for the dead as for the living. The following incident is related in the life of the lovely and so sadly maligned Mary Queen of Scots. In the early days of her reign, when still struggling with the intolerant fury of Knox and his followers, - it was in the December of 1561 - Mary desired to have solemn Mass offered up for the repose of the soul of her deceased husband, the youthful Francis. This so aroused the fury of the fanatics about her, that they threatened to take the life of the priests who had officiated. "Immediately after the Requiem was over, she caused a proclamation to be made by a Herald at the Market Cross, that no man on pain of his life should do any injury, or give offense or trouble to her chaplains."

The poet Campbell in his dirge for Wallace, makes the Lady of Elderslie, the hero's wife, cry out in the first intensity of her sorrow;

"Now sing you the death-song and loudly pray
For the soul of my knight 'so dear.'"

We shall now leave the wild poetic region of Scotland, and with it conclude Part First, taking up again in Part Second the thread of our narrative, which will wind in and out through various countries of Europe, ending at last with a glance at our own America.


REMEMBRANCE OF THE DEAD THROUGHOUT EUROPE.


PART II.

In Austria we find an example of devotion to the dead, in the saintly Empress Eleanor, who, after the death of her husband, the Emperor Leopold, in 1705, was wont to pray two hours every day for the eternal repose of his soul. Not less touching is an account given by a Protestant traveller of an humble pair, whom he encountered at Prague during his wanderings there. They were father and daughter, and attached, the one as bell-ringer, the other as laundress, to the Church on the Visschrad. He found them in their little dwelling. It was on the festival of St. Anne, when all Prague was making merry. The girl said to him: "Father and I were just sitting together, and this being St. Anne's Day, we were thinking of my mother, whose name was also Anne." The father then said, addressing his daughter: "Thou shalt go down to St. Jacob's to-morrow, and have a Mass read for thy mother, Anne." For the mother who had been long years slumbering in the little cemetery hard by. There is, something touching to me in this little incident, for it tells how the pious memory of the beloved dead dwelt in these simple hearts, dwells in the hearts of the people everywhere, as in that of the pious empress, whose inconsolable sorrow found vent in long hours of prayer for the departed.

In the will of Christopher Columbus there is special mention made of the church which he desired should be erected at Concepcion, one of his favorite places in the New World, so named by himself. In this church he arranged that three Masses should be celebrated daily - the first in honor of the Blessed Trinity; the second, in honor of the Immaculate Conception; and the third for the faithful departed. This will was made in May, 1506. The body of the great discoverer was laid in the earth, to the lasting shame of the Spaniards, with but little other remembrance than that which the Church gives to the meanest of her children. The Franciscans, his first friends, as now his last, accompanied his remains to the Cathedral Church of Valladolid, where a Requiem Mass was sung, and his body laid in the vault of the Observantines with but little pomp. Later on, however, the king, in remorse for past neglect, or from whatever cause, had the body taken up and transported with great pomp to Seville. There a Mass was sung, and a solemn funeral service took place at the cathedral, whence the corpse of the Admiral was conveyed beyond the Guadalquivir to St. Mary of the Grottoes (Santa Maria de las Grutas). But the remains of this most wonderful of men were snatched from the silence of the Carthusian cloister some ten years later, and taken thence to Castile, thence again to San Domingo, where they were laid in the sanctuary of the cathedral to the right of the main altar. Again they were disturbed and taken on board the brigantine Discovery to the Island of Cuba, where solemnly, once more, the Requiem for the Dead swelled out, filling with awe the immense assembly, comprising, as we are told, all the civil and military notables of the island.

In the annals of the Knight Hospitallers of St. John, it is recorded that after a great and providential victory won by them over the Moslem foe, and by the fruits of which Rhodes was saved from falling into the hands of the enemy, the Grand Master D'Aubusson proceeded to the Church of St. John to return thanks. And that he also caused the erection of three churches in honor of Our Blessed Lady, and the Patron Saints of the city. These three churches were endowed for prayers and Masses to be offered in perpetuity for the souls of those who had fallen in battle. This D'Aubusson was in all respects one of the most splendid knights that Christendom has produced. A model of Christian knighthood, he is unquestionably one of the greatest of the renowned Grand Masters of St. John. There is a touching incident told in these same annals of two knights, the Chevalier de Servieux, counted the most accomplished gentleman of his day, and La Roche Pichelle. Both of them were not only the flower of Christian knighthood, but model religious as well. They died of wounds received in a sea fight off Saragossa in 1630, and on their death-beds lay side by side in the same room, consoling and exhorting each other, it being arranged between them, that whoever survived the longest should offer all his pains for the relief of his companion's soul.

We have now reached a part of our work, upon which we shall have occasion to dwell at some length, and notwithstanding the fact that it has already formed the subject of two preceding articles. It is that which relates to England, and which is doubly interesting to Catholics, as being the early record of what is now the chief Protestant nation of Europe. To go back to those Anglo-Saxon days, which might be called in some measure the golden age of Catholic faith in England, we shall see what was the custom which prevailed at the moment of dissolution. In the regulations which follow there is not question of a monarch nor a public individual, nor of priest nor prelate, but simply of an ordinary Christian just dead. "The moment he expired the bell was tolled. Its solemn voice announced to the neighborhood that a Christian brother was departed, and called on those who heard it to recommend his soul to the mercy of his Creator. All were expected to join, privately, at least, in this charitable office; and in monasteries, even if it were in the dead of night, the inmates hastened from their beds to the church, and sang a solemn dirge. The only persons excluded from the benefit of these prayers were those who died avowedly in despair, or under the sentence of excommunication.

"... Till the hour of burial, which was often delayed for some days to allow time for the arrival of strangers from a distance, small parties of monks or clergymen attended in rotation, either watching in silent prayer by the corpse or chanting with subdued voice the funeral service.... When the necessary preparations were completed, the body of the deceased was placed on a bier or in a hearse. On it lay the book of the Gospels, the code of his belief, and the cross, the emblem of his hope. A pall of linen or silk was thrown over it till it reached the place of interment. The friends were invited, strangers often deemed it a duty to attend. The clergy walked in procession before, or divided into two bodies, one on each side, singing a portion of the psalter and generally bearing lights in their hands. As soon as they entered the church the service for the dead was performed; a Mass of requiem followed; the body was deposited in the grave, the sawlshot paid, and a liberal donation distributed to the poor." [1]

[Footnote 1: "Lingard's Antiquities of the Anglo Saxon Church," Vol. II, pp. 46-47.]

In the northern portico of the Cathedral of Canterbury was erected an altar in honor of St. Gregory, where a Mass was offered every Saturday for the souls of departed archbishops. We read that Oidilwald, King of the Deiri, and son of King Oswald, founded a monastery that it might be the place of his sepulture, because "he was confident of deriving great benefit from the prayers of those who should serve the Lord in that house." Dunwald the Thane, on his departure for Rome to carry thither the alms of his dead master, King Ethelwald, A.D. 762, bequeathed a dwelling in the market in Queengate to the Church of SS. Peter and Paul for the benefit of the king's soul and his own soul.

As far back as the days of the good King Arthur, whose existence has been so enshrouded in fable that many have come to believe him a myth, we read that Queen Guenever II., of unhappy memory, having spent her last years in repentance, was buried in Ambreabury, Wiltshire. The place of her interment was a monastery erected by Aurelius Ambrose, the uncle of King Arthur, "for the maintenance of three hundred monks to pray for the souls of the British noblemen slain by Hengist." Upon her tomb was inscribed, "in rude letters of massy gold," to quote the ancient chronicler, the initials R. G. and the date 600 A.D.

In the