Hostile Legacy

Dies Irae. That’s Latin (dee-ays ee-ray with the r rolled). It means the day of wrath. There’s a famous old hymn that goes by this title. Perhaps it isn’t so famous these days, but if we’re speaking historically (and anyone who reads my blog at all knows I’m *always* speaking historically), it’s been popular since when it was written in the 1200s. It’s extremely long… somewhere around 20 stanzas if I remember correctly. There’s also a popular English translation (I think it was written for the Anglican liturgy… again, if memory serves me properly which it very well may not). I’m particularly fond of both versions, and actually one of the new songs on my album uses the Latin for the lyrics. But enough with the unecessary chatter, let me get to the point. The first stanza goes thus:

Day of wrath, O day of mourning,
See fulfilled the prophets warning,
Heaven and earth in ashes burning.

I highly reccomend you read the whole thing, but I’ll leave that up to your discretion. Here’s a link if you are so inclined to take my humble advice. It would be well worth your while. http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/d/a/daywrath.htm

I shall content myself with commentating on the first line of the hymn.

so a few days ago, I was sitting around for a while in a chair with nothing in particular to do. After a while I had the brilliant idea of writing with the pen in my pocket on my arm. So I proceeded to do so. I wrote:

DIES IRAE,
DIES ILLA.

The day of wrath, O that day. As you can perhaps tell from the first stanze I put in here, the hymn is about judgement day. I’ve been walking around with Dies Irae, Dies Illa written on my arm now for a while. And every time I look at my arm I’m reminded of judgement day. It’s actually been a very sobering experience for me… surprisingly so. What a fearful day it will be… and I do so many things every day without thinking about their eternal significance. Will my words justify me on that day? Will my actions? Jesus says by thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. Will I have lived a life under grace when that day rolls around? Will I have lived in love to all men with compassion towards all men?

I wonder about that. It’s so easy to make excuses in my mind… or to push off responsibility. And yet somehow, despite myself and my weakness, I know that I’m following my master. Perhaps not perfectly, perhaps stumbling and slowing down at various times, but I’m moving after him. And that gives me comfort. I trust that God will and even is now purifying me and shining his light through me, even if only dimly. I put my trust in grace all around me, underneath me, running in a current over me, carrying me. On that day of wrath I hope with all my spirit that God will smile upon me and not frown.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 10:19 pm and is filed under Christian Living, Salvation, Test Yourself. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.