If One Must go, ….
The story starts out, “Not even the death of a worshipper was enough to stop Mass in a small church in the northern Italian town of Trento.” Pio Lieta, 86, suffered a fatal heart attack and instead of waiting around for an ambulance to remove the body, Father Mario Peron asked for the body to be covered with a white cloth church while he completed the sacrifice of the Mass. While one unidentified parishioner allegedly said the Mass should have been stopped out of respect for the deceased, the deceased man, priest and the family apparently knew of at least 15 reasons the Mass must go on.
Grace from Mass (A Catholic life)
1. The Mass is Calvary continued.
2. Every Mass is worth as much as the sacrifice of our Lord’s life, sufferings, and death.
3. Holy Mass is the world’s most powerful atonement for your sins.
4. At the hour of death, the Masses you have heard will be your greatest consolation.
5. Every Mass will go with you to judgment and plead for pardon.
6. At Mass, you can diminish more or less temporal punishment due to your sins, according to your fervor.
7. Assisting devoutly at Holy Mass, you render to the sacred humanity of Our Lord the greatest homage.
8. He supplies for many of your negligence and omissions.
9. He forgives the venial sins which you have not confessed. The power of Satan over you is diminished.
10. One Mass heard during life will be of more benefit to you than many heard for you after your death.
11. You are preserved from dangers and misfortunes which otherwise might have befallen you. You shorten your Purgatory.
12. Every Mass wins for you a higher degree of glory in Heaven.
13. You receive the priest’s blessing which Our Lord ratifies in Heaven.
14. You kneel amidst a multitude of holy angels, who are present at the adorable Sacrifice with reverential awe.
15. You are blessed in your temporal goods and affairs.
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On the night he was betrayed…
If Our Blessed Lord’s death didn’t interrupt the Mass (do this in remembrance of me) then why should anyone else’s? It is, after all, that which gives meaning to our life and death.
Comment by Dim Bulb — January 25, 2008 @ 11:04 pm
An interesting story..can’t think of a better place to die.
Comment by mrs jackie parkes — January 26, 2008 @ 7:31 am
Shelray: How nice to die in God’s house saying Mass! Everyone there would probably pray for your soul. I want to die like that–that’s the best–although it would be a bit creepy having the dead body lying there.
Comment by tara — January 28, 2008 @ 11:09 pm
What? No laypeople at that Mass able to carry her out?
No nurses or docs in the audience to sit by the body until the ambulance arrived?
(I’m a doc…and have treated seizures, faints, and heart attacks in church)…
I agree: the priest can’t stop mass…I once attended a noon mass where our hospital chaplain kept getting paged…he completed the mass, but speeded it up…than ran to give last rites at the local emergency room…
Comment by Nancy Reyes — February 6, 2008 @ 7:37 pm
Nancy,
I believe in Italy, a body cannot be removed by anyone other than medical professionals.
Comment by shelray — February 6, 2008 @ 8:38 pm