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,27282728 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 543necessary 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.
