Rest in Peace, Sgt.

While Noah was deployed to Iraq, there was a hoax of a soldier's capture (turned out to be photos of a toy) and I still remember the gut crunching feeling we experienced when we first heard the news. I had that same reaction when we learned of Matt Maupin's capture and I have always been pained by the purgatory of uncertainty that Sgt. Maupin's parents have endured these four years.

Today we know... and we salute Sgt. Matt Maupin as a Hero. Our prayers go out to the Maupin family and Matt's friends and brothers-in-arms. Rest easy, soldier.

We ask for your prayers for this American Hero and his family.

COME to his assistance, All you Saints of God! Meet him, you Angels of the Lord. Receive his soul, and present it to the Most High. May Christ who called you, receive you; and may the Angels lead you into the bosom of Abraham. Eternal rest grant to him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May the souls of the faithfully departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.

Into your hands, O Lord, we humbly entrust our brother. In this life you embraced him with your tender love; deliver him now from every evil and bid him enter eternal rest.

The old order has passed away: welcome him then into paradise, where there will be no sorrow, no weeping nor pain, but the fullness of peace and joy with your Son and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.