Requiem Masses are masses that are offered for the dead. They derive their name from the first word of the Introit, which may be traced to the Fourth Book of Esdras, one of the Apocrypha, at the passage “Expectate pastorem vestrum, requiem æternitatis dabit vobis . . . Parati estote ad præmia regni, qui lux perpetua lucabit vobis æternitatem temporis” (IV Esd., ii, 34, 35). It is also connected with a passage in Isaias, “Et requiem tibi dabit Dominus semper, et implebit splendoribus animam tuam” (Is. lxviii, 11). The Antiphon is from Psalm lxiv. The date of the adoption of this Introit is not well known, but it is found in the so-called Antiphonary of St. Gregory Come of Albino (see the edition Rome, 1691. p. 226). In that work, however, there are two other Introits for the Mass of the Dead, one of which is “Ego sum resurrectio et vita; . . . non morietur in æternam”; and the other, “Rogamus te, Dominus Deus noster, ut suscipias animam hujus defuncti, pro quo sanguinem tuum fudisti; recordare Domine quia pulvis sumus et homo sicut foenum flos agri.” The religious idea that the soul is immortal made even the Jews hold that the just, after death, went to sleep with their fathers (cf. Genesis 47:30; 1 Kings 2:10; 2 Maccabees 7:45), and Christians believed with St. Paul that they slept in Christ (1 Corinthians 15:18). From the first century, therefore, prayers were offered that the dead might have eternal rest. Gregory of Tours (Glor. Mart., I, lxv), speaking of a Christian woman who each day caused the Divine Sacrifice to be offered for her deceased husband, says, “Non diffisa de Domine miseracordia, quod haberet defunctis requiem.” And St. Ambrose (Ob. Valentiniani imp, no. 56) writes: “Date manibus sancta mysteria, pio requiem ejus poscamus officio.” So originated the Introit for the Mass for the Dead.
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