The Deacon's Bench
Msgr. David Cassato, pastor of St. Athanasius Church in Bensonhurst, will say a special Month’s Mind Mass at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday to mark the one-month anniversary of the assassinations of Police Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. “It will be a month on Tuesday, but the Month’s Mind Mass will take place on Sunday because it’s time to start the healing process,” says Cassato, an NYPD chaplain coming off two surgeries who rushed to Woodhull Hospital on Dec. 20 to try to console the shattered Ramos and Liu families.
It was at the hospital that some uniformed cops first turned their backs on Mayor de Blasio, a gesture some repeated at the funerals for both hero cops. Cassato attended both funerals and has heard a lot of angry words exchanged since. There’s been a police slowdown, and our wounded city has looked divided, vulnerable and ridiculous, especially in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris.
“It’s time to stop the craziness,” says Cassato. “In the Roman Catholic Church, a Month’s Mind Mass is a really big deal because it comes a month after the initial shock and grief of death. It is a time to honor the dead with prayers, a time to hope that their lives and deaths will have lasting meaning. What could be a better legacy for Officers Ramos and Liu than to help heal this city? To bring a little peace on Earth that didn’t happen for them or their families or the city this past Christmas? Christmas is supposed to be a time of celebration, rejoicing the birth of Jesus. Instead, we were all grieving or feuding. This Month’s Mind Mass offers a time to heal and unite in their honor.”
Cassato says he’s expecting a large contingent of 84th Precinct cops who worked with Ramos and Liu. “Those two cops reflect my parish perfectly because we’ve had such an influx of Asians and Hispanics in Bensonhurst,” he says. “Fifteen years ago, we had maybe 50 Hispanics at St. A’s. Now, we have three Spanish-language Masses every Sunday for 1,500 Hispanics. We don’t have huge numbers of Asians, but we have more than ever. Plus another 1,500 whites. Ramos and Liu reflect a changing parish, a changing city and a changing NYPD.”
Cassato says buttons with blue ribbons and the words “We Support NYPD” will be distributed at the Mass.
Some background on the tradition of the Mind Mass or Month’s Mind:
A Month’s Mind is a requiem mass celebrated about one month after a person’s death, in memory of the deceased.
In medieval and later England, it was a service and feast held one month after the death of anyone in his or her memory. Bede speaks of the day as commemorationis dies. These “Minding days” were of great antiquity, and were survivals of the Norse minne, or ceremonial drinking to the dead.
“Minnying Days,” says Blount, “from the Saxon Lemynde, days which our ancestors called their Monthes mind, their Year’s mind and the like, being the days whereon their souls (after their deaths) were had in special remembrance, and some office or obsequies said for them, as Obits, Dirges.” The phrase is still used in Lancashire.
It is still an almost universal practice in Ireland (for Roman Catholics) for the family of the deceased and close friends to attend mass and take a meal together on the occasion of the month’s mind.
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