"Whither, also, all we mortals wend our way, making of our funeral dirge the song: Alleluia."

"Thou only art immortal, the creator and maker of mankind; and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and unto earth shall we return.  For so thou didst ordain when thou createdst me, saying, 'Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.'  All we go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song:  Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia."

     The Oikos or Ikos (Ὁ Οἶκος) to the Kontakion for the Orthodox funeral service in the church (Νεκρώσιμος, ἤτοι εἰς Κεκοιμημένους . . . ἐν τῳ ναῳ), as translated on p. 482 (Burial I) of the 1979 Book of common prayer.  For the Greek, see p. 411 of this 1869 printing of the Euchologion to mega (Ευχολόγιον το μέγα):

Αὐτὸς μόνος ὑπάρχεις ἀθάνατος, ὁ ποιήσας καὶ πλάσας τὸν ἄνθρωπον·  οἱ βροτοὶ οὖν ἐκ γῆς διεπλάσθημεν, καὶ εἰς γῆν τὴν αὐτὴν πορευσόμεθα, καθὼς ἐκέλευσας ὁ πλάσας με, καὶ εἰπών μοι·  Ὅτι γῆ εἶ, καὶ εἰς γῆν ἀπελεύσῃ·  ὅπου πάντες βροτοὶ πορευσόμεθα, ἐπιτάφιον θρῆνον ποιοῦντες ᾠδὴν τὸ, Ἀλληλούϊα.

Other translations exist, e.g.

You only are immortal, the creator and maker of mankind; and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and to earth shall we return.  For so did you ordain when you created me, saying, 'You are dust, and to dust you shall return.'  All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song:  Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia [(p. 499 (Burial II) of the 1979 Book of common prayer)].

Thou only art immortal, who has created and fashioned man.  For out of the earth were we mortals made, and unto the earth shall we return again, as thou didst command when thou madest me, saying unto me:  For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.  Wither, also, all we mortals wend our way, making of our funeral dirge the song:  Alleluia [(The service book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic (Greco-Russian) Church (Boston:  Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, 1906), as reproduced on p. 215 (pp. 185-234) of Alexander Schmemann, The liturgy of death:  four previously unpublished texts (Yonkers, NY:  St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2016))].

You alone are immortal, who made and fashioned mankind; we mortals then were formed from earth and to that same earth we shall go, as You who formed me commanded saying: You are earth, and you will go back to earth; to which all we mortals will go making our funeral lament a song: Alleluia [(Fr. Ephrem Lash)].

Thou alone art immortal, who hast created and fashioned man. For out of the earth were we mortals made, and unto the same earth shall we return again, as Thou didst command when Thou didst fashion me, saying unto me: Earth thou art, and unto the earth shalt thou return. Whither, also, all we mortals wend our way, making of our funeral dirge the song: Alleluia [(http://www.kiilehua.com/services/The_Funeral_Service.pdf)].

Cf. the post Cantemus Alleluia.

perfectae vitae tolerantia

By your help, we beseech you, Lord our God, may we walk eagerly in that same charity with which, out of love for the world, your Son handed himself over to death.

Quaesumus, Domine Deus noster, ut in illa caritate, qua Filius tuus diligens mundum morti se tradidit, inveniamur ipsi, te opitulante, alacriter ambulantes.

     Collect, Fifth Sunday of Lent, Missale Romanum (2002).  According to Corpus orationum, this is derived from CO 591, present as no. 324 in the critical edition of Toledo, Biblioteca Capit. 35.4 (J. Janini, Liber Misticus, in Liber Missarum de Toledo 2 (Toledo:  1983), pp. 7-147)), which dates to the 9th/10th century (and from other sacramentaries of the 10th-12th centuries):

Christe deus, qui inter iniquos suspendi passus es, crucis sustinendo iniuriam, dato nobis perfectae vitae tolerantiam, ut caritate illa, qua ipse, mundum diligens, pro eodem mortem subisti, inveniamur ipsi, te opitulante, perfecti sicque passionis tuae exemplo illata toleremus scandala, ut, sanguine crucis tuae omnia pacificante, capitis nostri mereamur effici membra.

Christ [our] God, who have permitted [yourself] to be hung up between enemies [while] sustaining the outrage [(iniuriam)] of the cross, give to us the endurance of a finished life, so that, by that charity in which [you] yourself [(ipse)], loving the world, submitted to [(pro)] the said death, we may thus, you aiding [us], [1] effect [(inveniamur, meet with)] that finished imitation [(exemplo, pattern)] of your passion, [and] [2] endure [the] injuries [(scandala)] inflicted, so that, the blood of your cross pacifying all things [(Col 1:20)], we may merit to be made members of our head.

Previous ICEL "translation":

Father, help us to be like Christ your Son, who loved the world and died for our salvation.  Inspire us by his love, guide us by his example, who lives. . . .

By the period covered by Blaise, unfortunately, tolerantia had come to be (contemptuously) of sodomy.

Putnam on the challenge posed by diversity

robertdputnam.com

"It would be unfortunate if a politically correct progressivism were to deny the reality of the challenge to social solidarity posed by diversity.  It would be equally unfortunate if an ahistorical and ethnocentric conservatism were to deny that addressing that challenge is both feasible and desirable."

     Robert D. Putnam, "E pluribus unum:  diversity and community in the twenty-first century:  The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture," Scandanavian political studies 30, no. 2 (2007):  165 (137-174).  And how should it be addressed?

the central challenge for modern, diversifying societies is to create a new, broader sense of ‘we’ [(139)]. 

a society will more easily reap the benefits of immigration, and overcome the challenges, if immigration policy focuses on the reconstruction of ethnic identities, reducing their social salience without eliminating their personal importance.  In particular, it seems important to encourage permeable, syncretic, 'hyphenated' identities; identities that enable previously separate ethnic groups to see themselves, in part, as members of a shared group with a shared identity [(161)]. 

at the end we shall see that the challenge is best met not by making 'them' like 'us', but rather by creating a new, more capacious sense of 'we', a reconstruction of diversity that does not bleach out ethnic specificities, but creates overarching identities that ensure that those specificities do not trigger the allergic, 'hunker down' reaction [I've shown is the invariable aggregate response to a rise in or stress upon diversity (163)].