May Angels Lead You Into Paradise

Hail Mary, Full of Grace, The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death. Amen.

I am an admirer of Father Ray Blake’s blog.  His bloggy charism, to me at least, is that his site is a genuine weblog – a personal account of his ministry as a parish priest in Brighton, a place that can be seen as the coolest place on the planet or Hades-on-Sea, depending on your circumstances.  He writes about matters of faith and liturgy, developments in the Magisterium, issues of local interest and the day-to-day matters of carrying out his pastoral and priestly duties in a city by the sea where there is much social need, homelessness and poverty.

This post has also been picked up by That The Bones You Have Crushed May Thrill and by Rorate Caeli.  I wanted to write a little about it as well – I read it early today and cried.  It is about a dying man of faith and brings together in a few short passages the fate of a homeless man and the high sacredness of the rites of the Church.

If I may quote a little from it:

“Tonight Paul, who looks a little like St Paul, came to the door asking for absolution […] He wanted me to pray he would go to heaven and go soon. He asked me to say that prayer which he couldn’t remember but it had, ‘pray for me now and the hour of my death’. I told him all that was necessary that he should say the words he remembered, with as much faith as he had.”

Strangely today, I have twice heard reference to the story of Lazarus and Dives; and overnight on the radio, suddenly there came on In Paradisum.  Please read the posts and pray for Paul.

In paradisum deducant te Angeli; in tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres, et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Ierusalem. Chorus angelorum te suscipiat, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere æternam habeas requiem.

May angels lead you into paradise; upon your arrival, may the martyrs receive you and lead you to the holy city of Jerusalem. May the ranks of angels receive you, and with Lazarus, once a poor man, may you have eternal rest.