Go
along with me in psalms and in your prayers; and please constantly to
make oblations for me. When the thirtieth day [1] shall be completed,
then remember me: for the dead are helped by the offerings of the
living. If also the sons of Mathathias, who celebrated their feasts in
figures only, could cleanse those from guilt by their offerings who
fell in battle, how much more shall the priests of Christ aid the dead
by their oblations and prayers?" [2]
[Footnote 1: "The very day," says Cardinal Wiseman, "observed by the
Catholic Church with peculiar solemnity, in praying and observing Mass
for the dead". Archbishop Corrigan, of New York, in announcing to the
clergy of his diocese the death of His Eminence the late Cardinal
McCloskey, speaks as follows: "The reverend rectors are also requested
to have solemn services for the soul of our late beloved chief pastor,
on the _seventh_ and _thirtieth_ day."]
[Footnote 2: In Testament. T. ii., p. 334. p. 371, Edit. Oxen.]
Thus speaks ST. GREGORY of Nyssa: "In the present life, God allows man
to remain subject to what himself has chosen; that, having tasted of
the evil which he desired, and learned by experience how bad an
exchange has been made, he might feel an ardent wish to lay down the
load of those vices and inclinations, which are contrary to reason; and
thus, in this life, being renovated by prayers and the pursuit of
wisdom, or, in the next, being expiated by the purging fire, he might
recover the state of happiness which he had lost.
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