What Are You Looking For? Part 2: The Liturgy and the Sacraments

The Celebration of the Christian Mystery: Christian Funerals

The Celebration of the Christian Mystery: Christian Funerals

                We have now come to the final mystery.  It is a mystery we will all face one day.  It is the mystery of death.  In our culture, death is something many are terribly afraid of, but for the Catholic Christian, it shouldn’t be so.  That’s why death is part of the Celebration of the Christian Mystery.  It is so celebrated that in the Catholic liturgical calendar, the date for the feast day for many Saints is the day that they died. 

                When a Catholic dies, their death is celebrated.  That’s not to say that tears and grief aren’t also present.  When someone we love dies, we know we will miss them terribly.  But for the Catholic Christian mourner, we also know that death isn’t the final end.  Not for the deceased, nor for those left behind.  That’s why a Catholic Christian funeral is a celebration.  It is a solemn celebration, but it is a celebration none the less.  This is because the Paschal journey which was begun at their Baptism has now reached completion.  There may be some final purgation that needs to happen before the deceased loved one enters into the Beatific Vision, but they have been freed from the cares of this life and are home – or nearly so. 

                In my lifetime, I have only seen two Catholic Christian funerals: Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta and Blessed Pope John Paul II.  And I have only attended one.  In all three cases, there were some similarities to a Protestant funeral, but there were some marked differences. 

                In a Catholic funeral, the community gathers to pay their final respects, as in a Protestant one.  Pretty much from that point on, things are different.  “A greeting of faith begins the celebrations.  Relatives and friends of the deceased are welcomed with a word of “consolation” (in the New Testament sense of the Holy Spirit’s power in hope.)  The community assembling in prayer also awaits the “words of eternal life.”  The death of a member of the community is an even that should lead beyond the perspectives of “this world” and should draw the faithful into the true perspective of faith in the risen Christ.”  (CCC 1687)

                The Liturgy of the Word then follows.  Once again, the Scriptures focus on our eternal hope.  The hope that is available to everyone through Christ Jesus.  The hope that, just as he was resurrected from the dead, so too, will we be in the fullness of time. 

                Then we come to the Source and Summit of every Mass, of our entire faith: the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  In receiving the Body and Blood of Christ, we are reminded of Christ’s death and resurrection.  We are reminded that just as Jesus died and still lives, so does our loved one.  “In the Eucharist, the Church expresses her efficacious communion with the departed: offering to the Father in the Holy Spirit the sacrifice of the death and resurrection of Christ, she asks to purify his child of his sins and their consequences, and to admit him to the Paschal fullness of the table of the Kingdom.”  (CCC 1689)

                Through both the funeral Mass and the burial, we are reminded of what we profess every Sunday when we say the Creed: “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”  This profession is why the Church teaches that whether the body is buried or cremated, it must be treated with the dignity proper to it, because one day it will be needed again.  On the day Jesus Christ returns in glory, all bodies will be resurrected from the dead.  At that point we will receive our glorified body.  For this reason, even cremains are to be interred with the greatest respect.  They are not to be scattered or divided, but properly buried or interred.

                For all of us, death is not the final end.  For the Catholic Christian, death is but part of our journey of faith.  It is a journey that will end when we all behold the Beatific Vision and (finally) see our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, face to face.

                “By this final greeting ‘we sing for his departure from this life and separation from us, but also because there is a communion and a reunion.  For even dead, we are not at all separated from one another, because we all run the same course and we will find one another again in the same place.  We shall never be separated, for we live for Christ, and now we are united with Christ as we go toward him…we shall all be together in Christ.’”  (CCC 1690)