All Souls...

I have been busy all day so I haven't had time to post about All Souls, a feast very dear to me. I don't suppose that there is much to say about the Feast, or at least I can't think of anything at present; so here's my translation of the Dies Irae instead.

The Day of Wrath! That day
will dissolve all the world in ashes,

with David as the witness with the Sybil.

O how great the trembling is going to be,

when the Judge is about to come,

about to sift out everything thoroughly.

The trumpet spreading out a wondrous sound

through all the tombs of the regions,

will compel all before the Throne.

Death will stand aghast and nature,

when the creature arises

about to respond to the one judging.

The written book will be brought forth,

in which the whole thing will be contained,

whence the world will be judged.

Therefore when the Judge sits down

whatever lies hidden will appear

nothing unpunished will remain.

What am I a wretch about to say then?

What patron am I to ask,

when scarcely the just man will be secure?

King of tremendous majesty,

you who save those to be saved unmerited,

save me, fount of piety.

Remember, pious Jesus,

that I am the reason of your way;

do not loose me on that day.

Looking for me, you sat exhausted:

you have redeemed having suffered the Cross;

may not so great a labour be wasted.

O just judge of vengeance,

make me a gift of remission

before the day of reckoning.

I begin to cry, just as the guilty;

my face is red with sin;

spare the supplicants, O God.

You who absolved Mary,

and heard the thief,

you have given me hope also.

My prayers are not worthy

but you, good [God, I suppose], act kindly,

lest I be cremated in endless fire.

Among the sheep provide a place

and sequester me from the goats,

putting me on the right side.

The cursed having been confounded,

given up to the violent flames;

call me with the blessed.

I pray beseeching and head-bowed,

my heart is contrite as ashes;

take care of my end.

Full of tears that day

on which they will rise from the dust

a man to be judged as the guilty

spare, therefore, this man, O God.

Pious Lord Jesus,

give them rest. Amen.

Looks and sounds nicer in Latin doesn't it! When I die, I am going to have a Traditional Rite Funeral; hopefully with the whole lot: the bringing of my body into the Church, Matins and Lauds for the Dead, the Requiem Mass, the Absolution and the burying. I am also going to be buried facing Eastwards, so that come the Day of Judgement, I shall rise again facing Jerusalem. No godless and heathen cremations for me. When Tolkien died, in the culturally and liturgically magnificent early '70s, his funeral was a concelebrated farce. He really ought to have had a Pontifical High Mass of Requiem at the Throne with the Five Absolutions...!

Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine et lux perpetua luceat eis. Requiescant in pace. Amen.