memento mori

Remember your death- this is the manner in which Carthusians monks would greet a fellow brother. They weren't being morbid; they were reminding their brother to live his life in the prism of the final things- death judgement, Heaven, hell. Today, this Memorial Day & with tragic stories of families destroyed coming from the ornado-wracked south east. All I have to offer is prayer....

Give rest, O our Savior, with the Just, to Your servants, and set them in Your courts, as it is written. And overlook in Your goodness their sins, voluntary and involuntary, and all they committed knowingly and unknowingly, O Lover of men. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen. Christ our God, Who did shine on the world from the Virgin, through her making us children of light, have mercy on us.

With the Saints give rest, O Christ, to the souls of Your servants, where there is no pain, no sorrow, no sighing, but life everlasting. You alone are immortal, who did make and mold man. But we mortals were formed from earth, and to the earth we return, as You who created me did command and say to me, "You are dust, and to the dust shall you return," where all we mortals are going, and for a funeral dirge we make the song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Praying for all the fallen this memorial day in the United States