The Requiem Mass

In loving memory of Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

The great privilege of being a sacramental priest is that you get to say Mass – or communion if you prefer that word.

This morning I said a Requiem Mass for Jorge Mario Bergoglio who died yesterday. You probably knew him as Pope Francis. Did he need a Requiem Mass? Who knows? My ordaining bishop once told me that a pope may need a thousand requiems because power corrupts and a pope, like a president, has a huge amount of power. Whether he needed it or not, my job was to show up and offer the Work.

In this case, it was an honour to take the service for a man that I loved and who did his best under incredible constraints to bring the Roman Catholic Church back towards being the Catholic Church. Catholic, of course, means ‘universal.’ RomanCatholic, as with so many other orders of religion, often involves being a Company Man rather than a Kingdom Man. The difference is important.

In the same conversation about popes and requiems, my bishop then told me that he said a Requiem Mass for Saddam Hussein. I said ‘really?’ and he replied, ‘Someone had to. That’s the job. You don’t get to pray only for those you like.’

Today I prepared the altar, put on my cassock and stole, brought out the wine and bread and lit the candles with prayers to start. I was saying this Mass alone – and yet you are never alone when you say Mass; the presence of angels is visceral and, often, particularly with a Requiem, other souls are present too.

Usually, if I am (technically) alone, I say a ‘Slow Mass’ which means I sit barefoot on the floor for much of it and give time to every prayer, every reading and every blessing. I once told a fellow priest that and he said ‘God, how boring!’ but it isn’t; it’s what brings the Mass to life for me; it offers space for messages to come through as well. You get good messages when you are saying Mass! And you often feel the presence of the soul for whom you are praying too. Souls enjoy a good Mass – because a good Mass isn’t religious, it’s about honouring the Cosmic Christ – the flow of creative love from the Divine which was personified in Jesus and which is available to everyone and everything.

You can get uncomfortable messages as well. Now, I’m not saying that Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio turned up at his Requiem Mass today but something Pope Francis-esque certainly did because while I was saying the prayers I knew that one day (should I survive) I will be saying a Requiem Mass for Donald J. Trump.

I don’t like Mr. Trump. I think he is a man with an out-of-control ego who certainly appears to be incapable of compassion. His Easter message (in stark contrast to Pope Francis’s) referred to his predecessor as a ‘moron’ and today, on social media, I’ve seen that his followers are delighted that the pope is dead because he apparently suffered from that terrible ‘sin of empathy’ so we’ll be better off without him.

Nevertheless, the injunction from Jesus is to love our enemies – including those who oppress, grab and hate. We have to because (as social media shows so succinctly) if we allow ourselves to hate them, we descend to their level – and there are no solutions in that. Hate + hate = more hate.

This may be simple but it is very far from being easy. At least we can be grateful that Jesus never asked us to like our enemies because that would be impossible.

So, on the day of Mr. Trump’s death (we all die, so someday that will happen, as will my death), I will prepare the altar, put on my cassock and stole, bring out the wine and bread and light the candles with prayers and then I will say a clear, compassionate Requiem Mass for his soul.

I won’t do the MAGA thing of dancing on his grave or returning hate for hate. I will sigh a little for sure and I will face resistance (I might even do the ironing) and then I will get on with the Work. I do hope this doesn’t come across as virtue signalling because it isn’t intended that way; it’s simply trying to explain the Work.

The Work is what Jesus taught, about always turning towards love and compassion. priesthood is not a job for sissies and I can’t tell you that I do it well. In fact, I don’t do it well at all. But I keep on showing up and most times that I show up I do manage to fail a little bit less.

Every soul matters to God. Every soul deserves the best. Therefore, I must be a Kingdom woman, not a company woman. My altar is an open altar which means that no one, no one is turned away. And so it is. Amen.

P.S. Just because you may not be a priest, doesn’t mean that you can’t help the souls of the dead - whether you knew them or not. This mediation, The Chapel of Liberation was devised by Rt. Rev. David Goddard and Frances Banks, a former nun, and it can be done by anyone for anyone. I have recorded it here. Should you want the written text, please let me know.