Sacrifice for the departed on the anniversary of their death."
"It cannot be doubted," writes St. Augustine, [1] "that the prayers of the Church, the Holy Sacrifice, and alms distributed for the departed, relieve those holy souls, and move God to treat them with more clemency than their sins deserve. It is the universal practice of the Church, a practice which she observes as having received it from her forefathers — that is to say, the holy Apostles."
St. Monica, the worthy mother of St. Augustine, when about to expire, asked but one thing of her son, that he would remember her at the altar of God; and the holy Doctor, when relating that touching circumstance in the Book of his Confessions, [2] entreats all his readers to unite with him in recommending her to God during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Wishing to return to Africa, St. Monica went with St. Augustine to Ostia, in order to embark; but she fell sick, and soon felt that her end was approaching. " It is here," said she to her son, "that you will give burial to your mother. The one thing I ask of you is that you will be mindful of me at the altar of the Lord." Ut ad altare Domini metnitieritis met.
" May I be pardoned for the tears I then shed, for that death should not be mourned which was but the entrance to true life. Yet, considering with the eyes of faith the miseries of our fallen nature, I might shed before you, O Lord, other tears than those of the flesh, tears which flow at the thought of the peril to which every soul is exposed that has sinned in Adam.
"It is certain that my mother lived in such manner as to give glory to your Name, by the activity of her faith and the purity of her morals; yet dare I affirm that no word contrary to Thy law has ever escaped her lips? Alas! what will become of the holiest life if Thou dost examine
