Vigils Reading – Office for the Dead

WAIL, FOR THE DAY OF THE LORD IS NEAR

From “Homilies on the Prophetic Burdens of Isaiah” by St Aelred of Rievaulx6 ◊◊◊

The prophecy calls the Day of Judgment the day of the Lord. On that day, the Lord appearing in power and majesty will render to each according to their works. That day, of course, begins for each of us when we leave the body. We will then receive either the firstfruits of beatitude in rest, or the beginning of damnation in the soul, which we will later also receive in the body.

This day will certainly come as desolation from the Lord… For what will that day not lay waste? Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb…and naked I will return there. Where, then, is the wealth, where are the pleasures, where are the heaps of gold or silver, where are the crammed storehouses, flowing from here to there? Where are the fruitful sheep and the fattened cattle, where the silk garments and the warhorses? All things are brought to nothing for the dying person. For when people die, they do not lay claim to anything, nor does their glory go down with them. That day overtakes and devours whatever strength was in their body, whatever enjoyment in their flesh, whatever pleasure in their senses, and whatever pleasing in their habits.

Happy is the mind from which the memory of this day does not fade. Solomon bears witness to how useful it is to meditate on death when he says, Child, always remember your last moments and you will never sin. For who would take pleasure in sinning if that hour were always before their eyes? Therefore, wail in repentance, O sinner, so that you are not compelled to wail in punishment. May the Lord’s Day in your memory make you bitter against the world’s pleasures so that it does not make

you bitter in experience… because…all hands will grow slack, and every human heart will waste away and crumble.

Those who work well send their good works before them to God. After they die, they may rest and boast in their works with slack hands. Likewise, those who work badly send their evil works before them to hell, where they will be forever punished. For torments will powerfully afflict those who are powerful in evil here, the cruel will be cruelly tormented, the stench of sulfur will plague those stinking of lust, the Tartar- ean flames will burn those whom avarice kindles, and never-dying worms will feed on those whom gluttony and drunkenness defile. Pay attention to yourself, O human! For as often as you sin, you send before you to hell the material for punishment with which you could be tormented. You yourself light the fire that will torment you, you provoke the stench that will torture you, you bring to life the worms that will consume you, you prepare the darkness that will blind you. Then your hands will grow slack, so that they are neither fit to work nor strong enough to resist, but can only passively suffer…

Therefore, everyone must wail. The wicked must wail to avoid the damnation that comes from continuing in their wickedness. The lazy and lukewarm must wail so that God does not spit them out of his mouth because they are neither hot nor cold. So too those who do good badly, so that they do not enter the land by two roads. But those who do good well should also wail, so that the hidden Judgment of God does not condemn them. Thus, the prophet says, Wail, for the day of the Lord is near; as a desolation it will come from the Lord, so that the good may fear and the wicked may mourn upon glimpsing death nearby. May those who do not wish to wail in punishment thus learn to wail in repentance… Therefore, dear brothers, do not let this hour fade from your memory. If it has been a cause of fear, may it later become a gate of salvation, through Jesus Christ our Lord