Anniversary of Deceased OPs

Pere Marie Jean-Joseph Lataste, O.P.
Apostle of Prisons

The Church has always connected the feast of All Saints, with that of All Souls, to emphasize the communion of saints.  So does the family of the Order of Preachers.  Accordingly, since yesterday was the Dominican Order's All Saints Day, today, the following day, we Dominicans remember our brothers and sisters who have gone before us with the sign of faith, into the guiding arms of St. Dominic, who lead them to Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord.  Therefore, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.

To die with Christ is to conquer the apathy of existence, to put aside greed, to abstain from fickleness, to dismiss levity of mind, to reject what is useless and what is done for appearances' sake, and to choose the gospel with sincerity and faithfully cling to it.

To die with Christ is to free oneself from riches and human glory, and to moderate one's life for the kingdom of God.

To die with Christ is to accept the risk of human love which demands the denial of self, or to accept the danger of witnessing to truth and justice before others, or to experience the difficulty of holding steadfastly to the faith one has received.

To die with Christ concerns those things which in our daily lives are austerities, or to sustain difficulties and accept change which brings about the renewal of fidelity.

To die with Christ is to accept one's own death as a sacrifice and a trusting burying of self in God, and also to accept in hope the deaths of our brothers, sisters and friends.

To die with Christ is to bear with a serene spirit the process of aging, the rejections, the losses -- even in apostolic labors.

To die with Christ is to be freed from egoism and self-absorption through the various incentives to love, to share, to sympathize with and to be reconciled with others.

To die with Christ is to experience at times the darkness of faith and courageously to endure it.

To every Dominican, friars, sisters, nuns, and laity, in whatever time in which they lived, may they receive the Holy Spirit and rest in peace and joy.  May our loving and all merciful Lord, receive with joy all our dead, today.  And may they intercede for us, forever.      Amen.

From the writings of fr. Pierre Andre Liege, O.P. "To die together with Christ."