Lacrimosa Dies Illa - The Worldly Misunderstanding and Misstatement of Risk

Lacrimosa dies illa
Qua resurget ex favilla
Judicandus homo reus.

Huic ergo parce, Deus:
Pie Jesu Domine,
Dona eis requiem. Amen.


Full of sorrows will be that day
When from the dust and ashes rise
Those who will be judged.

Have pity on them, God,
O merciful Lord Jesus,
And grant them rest. Amen.


“Religion used to be the opium of the people.  To those suffering humiliation, pain, illness, and serfdom, religion promised the reward of an after life.

But now we are witnessing a transformation: a true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders,  that we are not going to be judged.”

Czeslaw Milosz, The Discreet Charm of Nihilism


"Those among the rich who are not, in the rigorous sense, damned, can understand poverty, because they are poor themselves, after a fashion; but they cannot understand destitution.   Capable of giving alms, perhaps, but incapable of stripping themselves bare, they will be moved, to the sound of beautiful music, at Jesus’s sufferings, but His Cross, the reality of His Cross, will horrify them.

They want it all out of gold, bathed in light, costly and of little weight; pleasant to see, hanging from a beautiful woman’s throat."

Léon Bloy