7. When therefore the faithful
mother of a faithful son departed desired to have his body
deposited in the basilica of a Martyr, forasmuch as she believed
that his soul would be aided by the merits of the Martyr, the very
believing of this was a sort of supplication, and this profited, if
aught profited. And in that she recurs in her thoughts to this same
sepulchre, and in her prayers more and more commends her son, the
spirit of the departed is aided, not by the place of its dead body,
but by that which springs from memory of the place, the living
affection of the mother. For at once the thought, who is commended
and to whom, doth touch, and that with no unprofitable emotion, the
religious mind of her who prays. For also in prayer to God,2728
men do
with the members of their bodies that which becometh suppliants,
when they bend their
knees, when they stretch forth their
hands, or
even prostrate themselves on the ground, and whatever else they
visibly do, albeit their
invisible will and
heart’s intention be
known unto
God, and He needs not these tokens that any man’s
mind
should be opened unto Him: only hereby one more excites himself to
pray and
groan more humbly and more fervently. And I know not how
it is, that, while these motions of the body cannot be made but by
a motion of the
mind preceding, yet by the same being outwardly in
visible sort made, that inward
invisible one which made them is
increased: and thereby the
heart’s affection which preceded that
they might be made, groweth because they are made. But still if any
be in that way held, or even bound, that he is not able to do these
things with his limbs, it does not follow that the inner man does
not
pray, and before the
eyes of
God in its most
secret chamber,
where it hath compunction, cast itself on the ground. So likewise,
while it makes very much difference, where a person deposits the
body of his dead, while he supplicates for his spirit unto
God,
because both the affection preceding chose a spot which was holy,
and after the body is there deposited the recalling to
mind of that
holy spot
renews and increases the affection which had preceded;
yet, though he may not be able in that place which his
religious
mind did choose to lay in the ground him whom he
loves, in no
wise
ought he to cease from necessary
supplications in
commending of the same. For wheresoever the
flesh of the departed
may
lie or not
lie, the spirit requires
rest and must get it: for
the spirit in its departing from thence took with it the
consciousness without which it could make no odds how one exists,
whether in a good
estate or a bad: and it does not look for aiding
of its
life from that
flesh to which it did itself afford the
life
which it withdrew in its departing, and is to render back in its
returning; since not
flesh to spirit, but spirit unto flesh
procureth merit even of very resurrection, whether it be unto
punishment or unto glory that it is to come to life
again.
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