A brief explanation on this musical masterpiece, suitable for a deep

Newsroom – (November 2, 2021 5:00 PM Gaudium Press) – Dies irae, (Latin for “Day of Wrath“) are the opening words of a Latin hymn on the Last Judgment. It once formed part of the office for the dead and requiem Mass. It is often heard during the Mass for the Dead on All Souls day. Thomas of Celano, the friend, fellow-friar, and biographer of St. Francis of Assisi, is ascribed as the composer of this hymn.

We are best acquainted with this famous Latin poem in the form in which it is found in the Roman Missal. This hymn has 57 lines in accentual (non-quantitative), rhymed, trochaic metre. 

It comprises 19 stanzas, of which the first 17 follow the type of the first stanza:

1. Dies Irae, dies illa,

Solvet saeclum in favilla:

Teste David cum Sibylla.

The remaining stanzas (18 and 19) discard the scheme of triple rhymes in favour of rhymed couplets, but the last two verses of the poem use assonance instead of rhyme and are moreover catalectic (one syllable shorter).

18. Lacrimosa dies illa,

Qua resurget ex favilla

Judicandus homo reus.

19. Huic ergo parce Deus:

Pie Jesu Domine,

Dona eis requiem. Amen.

The last six lines did not, in all probability, originally belong to the Sequence. It is quite probable that the Sequence was first intended for private devotion and that subsequently, the six lines (the two last stanzas) were added to it in order to adapt it to liturgical use.

What does it mean?

Father Matthew Britt, O.S.B., who has himself translated the Dies Irae in “The Hymns of the Breviary and the Missal,” is an authority for the statement, made after reading every worthwhile translation into English that has appeared to the present time, that “no adequate translation has yet appeared.” It is unusual indeed that a translator succeeds in preserving all the merits of a classical original. Any classic work, and particularly a classic poem, suffers some refraction in passing through the medium of another language.

The Author

It is likely that the author first wrote his poem as a stimulus to pious meditation on the Last Judgment. His purpose is to remind the sinner of the all-knowing and just Judge. Had the poem not been of such high quality, it would likely have remained buried in books of private devotion. Still, its excellence was quickly recognized and resulted in its adoption into the Liturgy as early as the second half of the fourteenth century. A rubric of the Roman Missal as revised by Pius V made its use universal in the sixteenth century; from that time to the present, it holds a prominent place among the official prayers of the Church for the dead. The first seven stanzas fill the soul with holy fear and consternation through their “graphic description of the end of the world and the judgment that is to follow.” The remaining twelve stanzas portray “in a spirited and gripping fashion the emotions which a serious meditation of the Last Judgment will invariably awaken in a sinful and sorrowful soul.” Stanzas 7 to 17 are a pathetic plea for pardon, first for the individual, and finally (stanzas 18-19) for all the faithful departed. In this Sequence, as in other liturgical prayers for the dead, the pleas for mercy seem to proceed from the deceased’s soul. 

Remarkably, Stanza 7 is traditional; the soul is stirred by the picture presented in the first six stanzas and seems to ask the question: “To whom shall I look for help?” The deeply earnest prayer of stanzas 8-17 is recited in the first person — the sinner is concerned with himself and his salvation; with stanza 18 comes a change, a strange voice indicated by the change in metre, a voice that asks eternal rest rather for the faithful departed than for the petitioner.

The hymn itself rests upon a biblical foundation; its contents are taken mainly from the prophetical descriptions of the Old Testament, from the eschatological sermons of Christ, and from the teaching and the references of the Apostles concerning the consummation of the world. The very basis of the Sequence is the dread reality of the consummatio saeculi predicted by Jesus Christ. This consummation of the world consists in an elevation of the creature to a higher degree of existence, in the supernatural renewal and transfiguration of the whole universe. Vain is the theory that looks upon creation as an endless series of recurrent changes, an eternal process of development and progress. We know that the world will come to an end. Human reason alone can arrive at no knowledge of “the last things,” the momentous events that will accompany the change in creation from time to eternity, from the present unstable order of nature to the lasting and unchangeable decree of eternity. Of concern to the individual are the four last things: death, Judgment, hell, and heaven. The fact of death is commonplace in human experience, but of what takes place beyond? Human reason can tell us nothing. Nor does divine revelation lift the veil that hides from our view the final stages of the world’s history but leaves us in a sort of twilight until faith yields to vision before the throne of God.

On Judgement

“It is not for you to know the times or moments, which the Father hath put in his own power” (Acts, i. 7). Not knowing the day nor the hour, the Apostles believed it possible that the second coming of Christ might take place within their lifetime. His second coming as Judge may indeed occur at any time, and in this sense, it is ever near at hand. The author of the Dies Irae pictures the Day of Judgment as near at hand, and speaks of it as a living witness. There is a peculiar aptness in this viewpoint, for the particular Judgment of every man takes place immediately after his death. This truth enables us to properly apply the biblical and liturgical texts that stress the general rather than the particular Judgment, for Judgment becomes a reality for the individual at his or her death. It is probable that the words of St. Chrysostom were part of the background of Thomas of Celano: “What would it profit us to know the time of the judgment day? Assuming that the end of the world were to come in ten, twenty, thirty, or a hundred years; would it benefit us to know it? Is not the end of his own life the last day for every man? Instead of laboring zealously for our own salvation, therefore, we are wasting time if we indulge in vain speculations concerning the end of the world. See to it that thy own life will end happily, and the end of the world will hold no terrors for thee, and it will matter little to thee whether it be near or far away. There is a close relationship between the death of the individual and the end of the world. What happens to the individual at death, will happen to the whole human race when the world will come to an end. It would not be amiss, therefore, to speak of the death of an individual as that individual’s last day or end of the world” (Homilies on II Thess., i. 9-10).

The Last Day

The ‘Last Day’ means the destruction of the universe by fire. The author of our hymn describes “that day” as a dreadful day of wrath. He takes the terminology from the Gospel of St. John and the Book of Job. The Apocalypse tells us that after the Judgment, “time shall be no more,” and St. Peter speaks of the day of eternity “that hath no night and no end.” Then, indeed, will the days of the earth be ended.

It is on the Last Day that Christ will triumph over all His enemies; it will be a day of Judgment and retribution, marking the vindication of Divine Providence, of God’s justice and goodness. The manifesting of His infinite justice will fill men with fear and trembling. That day will be a day of tribulation and distress.

Unlike the wrath of men, the wrath of God is not a passionate outburst of the disturbed irascible temper but the fair apportionment of just punishment. God is long-suffering; His mercy predominates over His justice during the days of our earthly life, a time of probation. But on that day, His justice only will rule. God sometimes punishes individuals as well as nations here below that sinners may not be “suffered to go on their ways for a long time,” but these punishments lead to conversion, to spiritual progress, often to salvation; in that day, however, the punishments of God are solely punitive, vindicative, and final. Every day that dawns is a new grace, but the forbearance of God reaches only to the day of death. The neglect and the abuse of grace kindle God’s anger. At last, the measure of sins is complete — the destructive Judgment of God comes upon a Godless world. We who live in the world are not without warning; the Apostle tells us not to receive the grace of God in vain, lest we treasure up to ourselves wrath “against the day of wrath and revelation of the just judgment of God.”

The Former Things Shall Be No More

“Cursed is the earth in thy work,” said the Lord God to Adam after his fall. In the liturgical prayers of the Church, we read: “Christus venturus est iudicare . . . saeculum per ignem.” God will use fire to judge, punish, and renew all things at the consummation of the world. The destruction of the world by fire will be a stupendous catastrophe. “But the heavens and the earth (are) reserved unto fire against the day of judgment . . . the earth and the works which are in it, shall be burnt up” (II Peter, 3. 7, 10). According to His promises, the Almighty will reconstruct “new heavens and a new earth according to His promises” (II Peter, iii. 13). “For behold I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be in remembrance” (II Peter, iii. 17). . We must act in accord with our belief on the brevity of life and the nearness of eternity. “Laetitia saeculi vanitas,” writes St. Augustine. And he asks: “Structor mundi dicit tibi ruiturum mundum, et non credis?” The inspired writers warn man again and again that he who is but dust may not set his heart upon the things of earth that are but dust. Telling indeed is the dictum of the sacred writer in the Book of Ecclesiastes: “I’ve seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit.”

After this brief explanation, we advise our readers to listen to this hymn, easily found online… and meditate on it.