Category: Death
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The Death of Corrupt Clergymen
About the Author: Thomas of Cantimpré (1201 – 1272) was pushed into the Church because a hermit told his father that unless one of his sons became a priest, the father would spend a very long time in purgatory. But Thomas took to the priestly life, becoming a noted preacher and theologian and writing several…
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Ars Moriendi: How Jesus Died
About the work: A second excerpt from the “Craft of Dying” reflects on Christ’s death and draws from it five pieces of advice for those on the point of death. Furthermore, forasmuch as Saint Gregory saith: Every doing of Christ is our instruction and teaching; therefore such things as Christ did dying on the cross,…
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Requiem Aeternam
by Tate Pumfrey Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord, Who now ascend the ladder laced in light Perpetual. That day of tears, of fright, Of mourning, mounts before these souls who ford Across the hidden hem of time toward That shore immortal. Christ, you did delight In calling Lazarus from death to life, Now…
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Walther von der Vogelweide grows old
About the Author: Walther von der Vogelweide (c. 1170 – c. 1230 AD) was the greatest of the Minnesänger, the wandering poets of the Middle Ages who sang of love and duty at the courts of the nobles of the Holy Roman Empire. It is unclear whether Walther began life as a noble knight, though…
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An Instruction Unto Them That Shall Die
About the work: The Ars Moriendi, or “Art of Dying” was a genre of Christian spirituality that rose to prominence after the disaster of the Bubonic Plague wiped out up to fifty percent of Europe’s population. The present work was written in the mid-fifteenth century, probably by a Dominican friar, and reminds you, the reader, that…
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The Last Will and Testament of Thomas Martyn, Farmer
About the Author: In 1473 a farmer named Thomas Martyn had his will recorded in Kent, and by an accident of history it was preserved. It is almost entirely from this document that we know anything about Thomas Martyn. We can guess that he was a farmer because so many of his bequests were of…
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Majesty in Silence: the Requiem and the Organ’s Traditional Absence
About the author: Tate Pumfrey grew up in Thamesville, Ontario and holds a Master’s Degree in Music (Composition) from York University. As a composer, he has focused on writing for the organ and sacred music. He has written articles for Catholic Insight and One Peter Five, enjoys writing poetry, and organizes traditional square and ceilidh…
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The Didache
About the Work: In the Early Church standardization soon became a problem. This problem was addressed through texts like the Didache, Teaching, the first word of its Greek title which we translate as The Teaching of the Lord through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations, circulated in Greek in the first century AD. The Didache covers important topics like the…
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The Martyrdom of Polycarp
About the Author: This letter from the Church at Smyrna is the earliest story of martyrdom not counting the New Testament. The original author is unknown, though our text includes the names of several men who copied the original letter. It tells the story of Polycarp, the 86 year old bishop of Smyrna, and of…
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The Dance of Death by John Lydgate
About the Author: In the early 14th century, the bubonic plague, the Black Death as it was called, swept through Europe, killing as much as half the population. Europeans suddenly had a sense of the presence of death among them, always ready to snatch them away. A French poet expressed this as the Danse Macabre, the Dance…