Stream on her from her Lord’s yet recent grave,
And then she smil’d, and in the Catacombs,
With eye suffused, but heart inspired true,
She her Good Shepherd’s hasty image drew,
And on His shoulder not a lamb but kid.”
AN APPENDIX TO THE EPITAPHS, ETC., OF THE CATACOMBS
The wish to be buried in the immediate vicinity of a saint or confessor, though perhaps especially marked in the subterranean cemeteries of Rome, was not peculiar to the Christians of the very early centuries. Many other instances could be quoted, from the days of the old prophet of Bethel who wished his bones to lie beside the bones of the man of God who came out of Judah (1 Kings xiii. 31) down to King John, who is said to have requested that he might be interred at Worcester directly between the bodies of SS. Oswald and Wulfstan.
S. Augustine’s De curâ pro mortuis gerendâ is a peculiarly interesting treatise. The great bishop discusses at some length this question, and his words throw considerable sidelight upon the growing practice of the invocation of saints.