*** Welcome to piglix ***

Absoute


The Absolution of the dead (or Absoute from the French) is a series of prayers for pardon and remission of sins that are said in some Christian churches over the body of a deceased believer before burial. The practice is found in the Eastern Orthodox Church as well as the Roman Catholic Church. Both churches use this practice to ask God not to have the deceased suffer for transgressions in life that they have repented or have been forgiven for.

In the Catholic Church the Absolute are said over a deceased Catholic following a Requiem Mass and before burial. The absolution of the dead does not forgive sins or confer the sacramental absolution of the Sacrament of Penance. Rather, it is a series of prayers to God that the person's soul will not have to suffer the temporal punishment in purgatory due for sins which were forgiven during the person's life.

The absolution of the dead is only performed in context of the Extraordinary form Mass, but is absent from the funeral liturgy of the Ordinary form Mass.

After the Requiem Mass has concluded, the celebrant removes the chasuble and puts on the black cope. The subdeacon, bearing the processional cross and accompanied by the acolytes, goes to the head of the coffin (i.e. facing the altar in the case of a layman, but between the coffin and the altar in the case of a priest), while the celebrant stands opposite at the foot. The assisting clergy are grouped around and the celebrant, who at once begin the prayer Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, praying that the deceased "may deserve to escape the avenging judgment, who, whilst he lived, was marked with the seal of the holy Trinity". This is followed by the responsory Libera me Domine, which is sung by the choir.


...
Wikipedia

...