St. Mary of the Assumption

Maple Park, Illinois

December 2018 Parish Calendar

 

This will seem like a strange topic for the “Christmas season” which surrounds us at this time of the year, but it fits in with the Advent season being observed by the Church.  The topic is about death and funerals, and for a couple reasons.  First, because the Church liturgy focuses the first two weeks of Advent on the final coming of Christ, which enlightens us about the reason why He was born in Bethlehem 20+ centuries ago.  Second, because there is a disturbing thing taking place with Catholic funerals these days.

Since I dealt with the first reason in last week’s column, I will address the second reason in this column: the sad fact that there is a growing tendency that Catholics have only a minimal funeral service, often just at the funeral parlor, at the time of their deaths.  Apart from exceptional circumstances, this flies in the face of witnessing to the meaning of our lives at baptized members of the Body of Christ.

Note what the Order of Christian Funerals, the ritual book to be followed by the clergy in officiating at funerals, says:

The celebration of the Christian funeral brings hope and consolation to the living.  While proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ and witnessing to Christian hope in the resurrection, the funeral rites also recall to all who take part in them God’s mercy and judgment and meet the human need to turn always to God in times of crisis.  ¶ 7

In our culture we are immersed in the “it’s all about me” view of life.  But as members of the Church, the Body of Christ, nothing in my life is simply “all about me.” Jesus told all his followers, as we read in the New Testament, to be witnesses to the Gospel message.  Not only my daily life, but also my death, should be a witness to my life as a follower of Jesus and my hope to live with Him forever in heaven.

The Order of Christian Funerals has other very important lines in it:

… those who are baptized into Christ and nourished at the same table of the Lord are responsible for one another...when a member of Christ’s Body dies, the faithful are called to a ministry of consolation to those who have suffered the loss of one whom they love...The Church calls each member of Christ’s Body — priest, deacon, lay person — to participate in the ministry of consolation: to care for the dying, to pray for the dead, to comfort those who mourn.  ¶  8

The full Catholic funeral allows my fellow members of the Body of Christ to fulfill their role of caring and consolation when I die.  For me to shut them out by wanting a “private service with no visitation” appears to be a rejection of my union with my fellow believers, whose union I expressed whenever I received the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion.  It appears to run counter to our union with Christ, in whom we have union with one another.

What do I mean by a “full Catholic funeral?”  Three principal ritual moments are identified by the Church: [1] the Vigil and Related Rites and Prayers (which we usually call “the wake” or the “visitation”); [2] the Funeral Liturgy (ordinarily the funeral Mass in church); and [3] the Rite of Committal (the prayers at the cemetery or place of burial).  These three gatherings should be the normal Catholic funeral process.

Sadly, my fellow priests tell me they experience the same thing I did before I retired as a pastor: many Catholics being buried having been deprived of the normal full funeral rites—sometimes by their own desires, sometimes because their surviving family members do not practice the Faith in which they were baptized and now don’t want the normal Catholic funeral process for their deceased loved ones.

I hope that we will give witness to our Faith by making sure we have the full Catholic funeral rites.  As St. Paul said, “I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me.”  Even my death should give witness to my Faith and my Lord, with whom I hope to live forever.
  

---

On Saturday, December 8, I am offering a Morning of Reflection for Advent from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM.  The topic is the Mass [remember: “Christmas” = “Christ’s Mass”] and our guide for the reflections is Bishop Robert Barron in his recent DVD set.