St. Ambrose (same century), on the death of the Emperors Gratian and Valentinian, says: "Blessed shall both of you be (Gratian and Valentinian), if my prayers can avail anything. No day shall pass you over in silence. No prayer of mine shall omit to honor you. No night shall hurry by without bestowing on you a mention in my prayers. In every one of the oblations will I remember you." On the death of the Emperor Theodosius he offers the following prayer: "Give perfect rest to Thy servant Theodosius, that rest which Thou hast prepared for Thy Saints. May his soul return thither whence it descended, where it cannot feel the sting of death.... I loved him and therefore will I follow him, even unto the land of the living. Nor will I leave him until, by tears and prayers, I shall lead him ... unto the holy mountain of the Lord, where is life undying, where corruption is not, nor sighing nor mourning."(289)
St. Jerome, in the same century, in a letter of condolence to Pammachius, on the death of his wife Paulina, writes: "Other husbands strew violets and roses on the graves of their wives. Our Pammachius bedews the hallowed dust of Paulina with balsams of alms."(290)
St. Chrysostom writes: "It was not without good reason _ordained by the Apostles_ that mention should be made of the dead in the tremendous mysteries, because they knew well that they would receive great benefit from it."(291)
St. Augustine, who lived in the beginning of the fifth century, relates that when his mother was at the point of death she made this last request of him: "Lay this body anywhere; let not the care of it in anyway disturb you. This only I request of you, that you would remember me at the altar of the Lord, wherever you be."
And that pious son prays for his mother's soul in the most impassioned language: "I therefore," he says, "O God of my heart, do now beseech Thee for the sins of my mother. Hear me through the medicine of the wounds that hung upon the wood.... May she, then, be in peace with her husband.... And inspire, my Lord, ... Thy servants, my brethren, whom with voice and heart and pen I serve, that as many as shall read these words may remember at Thy altar, Monica, Thy servant...."(292)