Who do the dying call?

For Christians today, the meaning of the prayer for the dying is a bit unclear. We tend not to hold vigils for the deceased anymore. We hasten to convince ourselves that they are in Heaven to dispense with having to pray for their souls. Fortunately there still remains the invocation of the Hail Mary "and at the hour of our death." At the foot of the cross stood Mary, Our Lady of Compassion.

The hour of the Passion of Jesus is also the hour of the compassion of the Virgin. Pray for our hour so that it is the hour of Mary, Consoler of the Afflicted as well! Common experience shows that many of the dying spontaneously call for Mother Mary.

If we pray to Mary at the hour of our death it is also because she alone, since the day of her Assumption, joined her Son Jesus in the glory of heaven with her body and her soul. So figuratively speaking, she can greet us in Paradise like a "good hostess." This is why the liturgy of the Church calls her the "gate always open to heaven" and beseeches us to look at the star to reach the port of heaven.

Father Guillaume de Menthière

Excerpt from his book Je vous salue Marie (Hail Mary), Paris

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