Monthly Requiem

Psalm 116:1-8

Today we remember the Brothers of the Society of St. John the Evangelist who have died in the month of July since we were founded in 1866, our Monthly Requiem. The word “requiem” comes from the Latin, “to repose, to sleep, to rest.”[i] At the time of someone’s death we pray:

“Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world…

May your rest be this day in peace.”[ii]

This practice of celebrating a Requiem is important to us Brothers. It may also be a helpful practice for you, personally, to intentionally remember people who have figured importantly into your own life, and who have died.

We pray for rest in peace for the departed one. Most people depart this life quite broken: their body, enfeebled; their mind, diminished; their relationships, torn. At least some relationships quite torn. So we pray for them, for healing in death, “where God will be with them [and] will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more…” These are words from The Book of Revelation.[iii] This is the last word of the Bible, the promise of eternal rest, and healing, and peace.

In the Requiem, we also pray for ourselves who have been formed by departed people: formed or deformed by significant people who have died. Though they have departed this life, they may still be very much alive in our memory and in how we navigate our life. We pray our gratitude. We may need to pray for inner liberation or healing – ours or another’s – in any relationship that was imprisoning or wounding. We may also need to pray for forgiveness.

And we pray for our own agency. Jesus said a very mysterious thing: “…Whatever [we] loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”[iv] What does that mean? Over the centuries, biblical scholars have never agreed: “Whatever [we] loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Jesus is our intermediary. If there is a residue or bondage in our relationship with someone departed, we implore Jesus “to set the captive free,” whether the captive be we ourselves or someone departed.[v] We take Jesus at his word, that he is the Savior of the world, always with us and with the departed, until the end.[vi] How long would we pray such a prayer of healing and liberation? Long enough.

[i] Requiem from the Latin: “rest (after labor), repose.”

[ii] A phrase found in a Prayer at the Time of Death, and in a Commendatory Prayer, and at the Vigil where we pray that the departed “rest in peace”: The Book of Common Prayer (1979), pp. 464-465.

[iii] Revelation 21:3-4.

[iv] Matthew 18:18.

[v] Jesus is here quoted in Luke 4:18-21 where Jesus claims to be the fulfillment of the Prophecy of Isaiah 61:1-3ff.

[vi] Matthew 28:20.