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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250812
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UID:13791-1754956800-1755043199@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading - Office for the Dead
DESCRIPTION:THE GOD \nOF THE LIVING \nBy Maurice Zundel \n◊◊◊ \nThe dead have disappeared from our sight. They have not disappeared \nfrom the sight of God. He knows where they are\, He knows their lot\, He “who \nloved them to the end.” But\, can we meet them\, can we communicate with them? \nSome of them occupied such a large place in our life; they were the light of our \neyes\, the source of our happiness\, the soul of our soul. Is all this now finished \nforever? \nHow can it be finished\, if we are more spirit than flesh\, and if we have \ntruly been in communion with what was most intimate and spiritual in them? \nBut how shall we find them again? By what means shall we reach them? By \nentering into what is most intimate in ourselves. \nIf in truth they sleep in Christ\, as we may always hope\, they are certainly \nfreed from the divisions of space and time\, from all material constraints\, from \nall the changes of the outer world. There is\, therefore\, no means of meeting \nthem\, more certainly efficacious\, than to establish ourselves on that internal \nplane which they have reached\, and strive to live their life. Since their life is \nplunged deep in the interior of God\, since He is their home\, their food and\, as \nour prayers so touchingly express it\, their sleep\, if we identify ourselves more \nclosely with Him\, and enter more deeply into His Life\, we shall enter into their \nlife\, and the converse broken off on the visible plane will be resumed in a more \nliving fashion in the silent commerce of souls. \nIt is indeed within that we must seek\, if we would not go astray in a world \nbeyond\, constructed with shadows of the visible world\, imagining relations with \nour dear ones which would tend to hold them back on the external plane… If \nthey are withdrawn from the vicissitudes of the sensible world\, have been born \nto the Life of the Spirit\, are in God\, we cannot conceive a bond between \nourselves and them more sublime than the communion\, always closer\, of an \ninner life of which God is the source\, the center and the gift. \nIn this way our love not only safeguards its profound reality\, it is also most \nefficacious. For by the strength of our love for God we can in a sense give Him to \nour departed\, if they are still detained in the stages of purification which \nconstitute the mysterious state of Purgatory; or increase in some way their joy in \npossessing Him\, if they have already reached the beatific vision. To live so as to \nbe always worthy of God\, this surely is the most certain way to be always with \nour dead. \nThey are in God\, the very heart of Love. But we also may approach this \nDivine Love\, for it is in God “that we live\, and move and have our being”. We \nalso are in God\, though not yet so completely as they. And God is in us. Christ \nexceeded our most daring hopes by making the [unity] of the Divine Persons the \nbond of our mutual intimacy… \nThere can be no surer comfort than this active and sanctifying \ncommunion with our dear ones in an intimacy continually increasing as our \nunion with God becomes closer. God has not taken them from us: He has hidden \nthem in His heart that they may be closer to ours. “God is not a God of the dead \nbut of the living.”
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-office-for-the-dead-21/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
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