dominican saints

From “Dominican Life: Prayer for Our Dead” by Fr. Ferdinand Joret, O.P.

“Dear Brother and Sister Tertiaries, you have come into an Order which is devoted to the dead. You will eventually profit by it, and in the meantime the Rule requires you to do your part to maintain this devotion. 

Furthermore, all those who are buried in our cemeteries, a privilege formerly greatly valued, benefit by our prayers and particularly by that De profundis which is recited on the way through the cloister of the dead.”

From The New Dominican Tertiaries’ Manual, 1935.

Perhaps when we have visited the cemeteries where our dear departed await the coming of the Last Judgment, we have wished that we could raise to their memory more suitable monuments to show how much respect and love we hold for their lives of unselfish devotion. We sometimes forget that we are not children of this world, but children of light, and that we can raise imperishable monuments to the memory of our beloved dead by having Masses said for the repose of their souls, by offering our Holy Communions, Masses and prayers that God may conduct them from the darkness of Purgatory to the joys of the beatific vision.

The Office of the Dead is also prayed should be prayed on this particular day. Should the anniversary fall on Sunday, the Office may be postponed till Monday.

In his treatise, In Symbolum Apostolorum, St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us of our duty in charity to work toward the release of these poor souls in Purgatory: “Christ went down into hell to set free those that were his own. We, too, therefore, should go down there to help our own. For those who are in purgatory are themselves unable to do anything, and therefore we ought to help them. Truly he would be a harsh man indeed who failed to come to the aid of a kinsman who lay in prison, here on earth. How much more harsh, then, the man who will not aid the friend who is in purgatory, for there is no comparison between the pains there and the pains of this world. Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you my friends, because the hand of the Lord hath touched me (Job xix, 21).”