An Office for the Dead

An Office for the Dead

Leave me you workers of iniquity:
for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.
The Lord has heard my supplication:
The Lord has received my prayer.

So let all my enemies be ashamed
and very much troubled.
Let them be turned back,
and be ashamed very speedily.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine on them.

First Reading
My dear people, since God has loved us so much, we too should love one another. No-one has ever seen God; but as long as we love one another God will live in us and his love will be complete in us. We can know that we are living in him and he is living in us because he lets us share his Spirit. We ourselves saw and we testify that the Father sent his Son as saviour of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him, and he in God. We ourselves have known and put our faith in God's love towards ourselves. God is love and anyone who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him. Love will come to its perfection in us when we can face the day of Judgement without fear; because even in this world we have become as he is. In love there can be no fear, but fear is driven out by perfect love: because to fear is to expect punishment, and anyone who is afraid is still imperfect in love.

V. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord hear my voice.
R. Remember me O Lord, my life is but a breath.

Let us pray.
O Lord, whose nature it is to have mercy and spare, we humbly beg your mercy on the souls of the faithful departed, that through your mercy and our feeble prayers, they may attain to that glory which they have always desired. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.