Passing Over

I was fortunate yesterday to hear of Fr. Jack's passing almost right away, and so had the opportunity to visit with him and pray before a lot of people showed up. Kneeling by his bed, I offered what remained of yesterday's rosary for his eternal rest.

In the course of praying I noticed his rosary and breviary placed neatly on the nightstand. Apart from our clothes, breviaries are the only thing the Rule allows us to have for our own. For a friar--especially a friar who is a cleric--one' s breviary is a permanent daily companion.

But now this particular breviary sat, useless as could be because the praying Christian to which it pertained had passed in prayer from the foretaste to the feast, from the corruptible world to the eternal. There were the ribbons protruding from the book, marking the moment in liturgical time when this transition had begun, the final exercise of the faint liturgy of earth before the glorious liturgy of the heavenly court replaced it in the individual pilgrimage of our brother.

Requiescat in pace.