Month of the Dead - Day 12 - Office of Apostle

So soon Forgotten!

"And I looked for one that would grieve together with me, but there was none." - Psalm 68:21

"Alas!" says Father Felix, "alas! in vain would we wish to deceive ourselves on this point; forgetfulness is the sad inheritance bequeathed by life to death. When the form of man has disappeared from our sight, thoughts of him rest not long in our mind; in reality, so quickly do we forget even those we had loved best! This neglect we cannot believe, at the time our soul, all full of regrets and farewells, promises to itself, as a consolation, immortality of remembrance. When we clasp in our hand the hand of him who is leaving us, and hear for his last words.

"'Ah! you at least will not forget me!'

"'I forget you? Oh! never, no, never! Death first!'

"Alas! poor heart of ours, everything escapes it - everything, even those feelings which are its very life. While the blow that death has struck still resounds within us, and our heart suffers from its recent wound, probably we remember. But as time goes on, the remembrance vanishes with the grief; the train of life brings, with other relations, new affections; time keeps advancing, and finally we think of leading an existence which has no further need of the dead; one step more and we are already accustomed to forget them. Now, when one is no longer necessary for the happiness of anybody here below, it is useless to hope to live in their memory; and in this respect there are many of the living who are already of the dead.

"So, sometimes the grass has not grown on our grave before new friendships, springing up in the hearts of those who have wept so much for us, little by little efface remembrance, which continues to decrease until it reaches forgetfuhiess. The sound of weeping, of regrets, and of praises will perhaps surround your last sigh; but as the tolling of the bell which re-echoes at our funeral grows fainter and fainter till it becomes silent, so the loudest sound of life, resounding in death, dies out. For example: whilst our body is returning to dust it mingles with a thousand things already reduced to earth, so our remembrance vanishes, little by little, lost with the forgotten generations. Then silence reigns; and of all the sounds which come under the winds of heaven, not one will tell that we have existed. Silence everywhere! And even in the little corner of the earth where our life was passed there will be silence too! Alas! yes, your very name will cease to be mentioned; at least, it will no longer be either the preoccupation or the entertainment of friends."

Father Claver - Forced Remembrance

Several people being engaged at work in a house at some distance from a city, one of them went to cut wood on a neighboring mountain. As he approached the forest he heard somebody call him by name from the top of a tree. He raised his eyes towards the place from whence the voice came, and not seeing any one, wished to run away and rejoin his companions. But he was stopped at a narrow path by a fearful spectre, who commenced to inflict on him heavy blows from a whip of red-hot iron, saying at the same time, "Why have you not your beads? Carry them henceforth and say them for the souls in Purgatory." He was then ordered to ask the mistress of the house tor four crowns which she owed, and to carry them to Father Claver, to have Masses said for the creditor's intention; after which he disappeared. Meanwhile the sound of the blows and the cries of the man had reached his companions, who, hastening to the spot, found him more dead than alive, and all bruised by the blows he had received, without being able to say a word. They carried him to the house, where the lady of the house acknowledged that she really owed the sum in question to a man who had died a short time previously. Father Claver, having been informed of all the details, had the Masses said and gave a chaplet to the man, who, not to be found unprovided a second time, had already two others in his possession.

Practice

Recite the entire rosary, or a third part of it, for the souls in Purgatory.

Prayer

Alas! Lord, have I not abandoned, with culpable forgetfulness, souls who have a right to my gratitude, parents, friends, benefactors? In future I wish to repair such criminal ingratitude. Ah! if I knew of some efficacious means to aid these poor souls abandoned in the midst of an ocean of sufferings, I would employ it even at the expense of my life. At least, nothing will be able to break the chain of sacrifices that I resolve to make till my last sigh, and which I refer to Thy glory and to their speedy deliverance, above all in consideration of the mortal agony and the cruel abandonment which Thou hast suffered. Deign, O Jesus! to remit the punishment which remains for them to submit to, so that they can enter the eternal kingdom, to W4iich they aspire, and where they will praise the ineffable greatness of a God who never abandons any one. Amen.

- text taken from Month of the Dead by Father Celestin Cloquet, translated by a Sister of Mercy, with the Imprimatur of Archbishop Michael Augustine Corrigan, Archdiocese of New York, 18 October 1886