The Fauré Requiem was designed for a Roman
Catholic mass for the dead which creates challenges for a devotional
performance in a Church of England service. [Outline of service]
The Church of England is
separate from the Roman Catholic church not least because from the sixteenth
century onwards such masses were considered an aberration. The Eucharist is a
memorial of Christ’s atoning death; it cannot function as a sacrifice the
living bring for the dead.
John Bawden
writes about the prevailing mood of the Fauré Requiem being one of
peacefulness and serenity. This probably reflects the way many in our society
think about death: an entry into peace and serenity. We like to think that
those who have died are now at rest. But is this what we truly believe? And if
so, on what grounds?
Is this a little like people
saying to someone who goes through a hellish illness, “I am sure you’ll be all
right in the end; life will get easier!” Do we know that? Just this week I read
a contribution
from a woman suffering from chronic pain, saying how unhelpful such reassurances
which have no basis in fact are.
The rest for which we pray so
hopefully is of course not the cessation of all activity which is simply death.
The “eternal rest” is meant to be a peaceful life where instead of striving and
fighting there is calm and refreshment; it is not the eerie silence of a place
where nothing ever happens any more.
The Requiem, from beginning to
end, petitions God many times that he would give eternal rest. Now it seems to
me that it is one thing to commend someone who has died to God at a
funeral service, praying that God would give rest to the deceased. It is a different
thing to continue to petition God several times on later occasions. Why
continue the petition? Is this for our sake or for the sake of the departed?
Is there maybe a niggling
doubt? Does God need to be urged to give eternal rest because we are not
actually convinced that he has done so?
This seems to lie behind the
words of the Offertorium. The music may sound like “a Requiem
without the Last Judgement” but the words of the Offertorium very much
assume that there is “the punishment of hell and the deep pit” and that there
is a real risk that the “souls whom today we remember” might be “swallowed by
hell” and so the prayer asks for a passing from death to life.
This reflects a very
controversial doctrine, namely that purgatory is a part of hell. Hell is
therefore seen as a place of punishment for two types of people – those, on the
one hand, for whom all hope is lost, namely any who died unrepentant, and
those, on the other hand, who have to endure sufferings before they are fit to
enter the presence of God.
This does not sit well with the
overall testimony of the New Testament.
Appeal is usually made to 1
Corinthians 3:12-15 where Paul writes,
12 Now if anyone builds on the
foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—13 the
work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because
it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has
done. 14 If what has been built on the foundation
survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If
the work is burned, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved,
but only as through fire.
But it is quite a leap from the
picture of a builder escaping “as through fire” with nothing to show for his
efforts to the idea that many will need to spend some time in hell before they
can enter heaven.
We read in Hebrews 9:27
that “it is appointed for people to die once, and after that comes judgement”
and wherever the NT speaks of post-mortem judgement a clear division is implied
between those who enjoy God’s presence and those who do not. In the story about
the rich man and Lazarus, we hear in Luke 16:26 “And besides all this,
between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would
pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.”
Many Christians have read these
statements as incompatible with the belief that the dead might move from the
pain of hell to eternal bliss, let alone that they may do so through the
prayers of the living.
If there is a purgatory, it
seems better to locate it in or with heaven than in hell in so far as hell
indicates ultimate separation from God. As Geoffrey Rowell, a retired bishop in
the CofE states, “Purgatory is a place of preparation for heaven, not a lesser
hell.”
Indeed, if there is a
purgatory, its purpose is surely to purify us from every sinful thought and
attitude and make us holy in desire, character, and habit. In this case the
process will take as long as it takes and it seems to make little sense to
believe that it can or should be shortened by our prayers, even
if we wanted to accompany the process with our prayers.
But it may be wrong in any case
to think of purgatory as a temporal process to which we can contribute
with our prayers.
But maybe the prayers are not
really about the departed, maybe they are about us. Maybe they are our way of
saying that we have not forgotten someone.
In this case would it not be better
to mention our loved ones by name in our own private prayers and to do so with
gratitude for what we have received rather than with anxiety about what is or
might be?
The CofE has prayed since 1552
“for the whole state of Christ’s church militant here on earth.” Militant here
means the opposite of “at rest” and so ensures that the prayer is for the
living only. Indeed, the 1552 Prayerbook (The Second Prayer Book of Edward VI)
finally removed all prayer for the departed and even the Elizabeth Prayerbook
of 1559 did not re-introduce them.
The 1662 Prayerbook added a
thanksgiving for departed Christians, coupled with prayer that we may share the
glory with them hereafter.
“And we also bless thy holy Name for all thy servants
departed this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to give us grace so
to follow their good example, that with them we may be partakers of thy
heavenly kingdom.”
This has a very different ring
from the prayers in a Roman-Catholic Requiem.
Except that the penultimate
movement of the Fauré Requiem, Libera me, also
is a reminder that thoughts about death and the afterlife should lead us to
pray for ourselves. Our main concern must be with the living.
We hear the Fauré
Requiem tonight alongside the second service readings appointed for this
Sunday. The first reading [Joshua 1:1-9] is very matter of fact about the death
of Moses and encourages a forward-looking perspective. It urges meditation on
what has been received through Moses rather than reflection on the fate of
Moses who famoulsy disappeared without his body being found.
Similarly, our second reading [Ephesiasn
6:10-20] can remind us that we are “the church militant” – we are the
ones in the midst of the battle of good against evil. Those who have gone
before us are no longer in the battle. Our departed brothers and sisters in
Christ are at rest, awaiting the resurrection. And those who do not belong to
Christ are no longer in the battle between good and evil either.
Those who are beyond this
battle in Christ, the faithful departed, do not need our prayers; the
departed who are not in Christ cannot benefit from our prayers. We need to pray
for one another, the living. It is us who are called to take up the
whole armour of God and to stand firm against evil.
So tonight, for me, is not an
opportunity to pray for souls in purgatory. But this is not because I dismiss
all talk about purgatory as fanciful myth. Much of the imagery which we link
with hell and purgatory comes from the middle ages when, so it seems, the
pictures were often understood quite literally, more often than either in
antiquity or in modern times.
It is easy to dismiss these
pictures of purgatory and hell by insisting on taking them literally but
many Christians throughout history spoke of the fires of hell without thinking
of literal flames and instead pondered what it is that is being symbolised
here.
In his encyclical SpeSalvi (Saved In Hope), Pope Benedict XVI wrote:
“Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Savior. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgment. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves.
All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire” [1 Cor. 3:15].
But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God.
In this way the inter-relation between justice and grace also becomes clear: the way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us for ever if we have at least continued to reach out towards Christ, towards truth and towards love. Indeed, it has already been burned away through Christ's Passion.
At the moment of judgement we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves. The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy. It is clear that we cannot calculate the “duration” of this transforming burning in terms of the chronological measurements of this world.” (par. 47)
And it is also clear, to me
anyway, that this process is meant to happen, or at least begin to happen now.
As we encounter Christ in one another, in the poor and marginalized, in his
word, and in the Eucharist we are to be cleansed of our falsehood.
Purgatory is here – and now, as
we meet Christ, whether or not it is also there and then in a post-mortem
encounter with Christ.
