The Requiem of Gabriel Faure. ‘Requiem’ comes from the prayer with which this piece of music opens:
‘Requiem aeternam, dona eis Domine’ (‘Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord’).
We are reminded that a Requiem is a Eucharist celebrated as an act of offering and prayer for the departed in which the Church intercedes for the dead on the basis of Christ’s redemptive death. As the hymn says,
‘For lo, between our sins and their reward, we set the passion of thy Son our Lord.’
The events of Holy Week are not simply about us, the living; but also about those who have gone before us, marked with the sign of faith, for whom the Church prays in penitence and in joy. It commemorates the death of Christ and celebrates his resurrection.