April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
PERSPECTIVE
Catholics, please have wakes and funerals
Catholics, please have wakes and funerals
I ask that question of Catholics when we renew baptismal promises at Easter and during baptisms. Do you ever reflect on what you are giving your assent to?
The human body is created by God and therefore is good. Any action against the dignity of the body -- slavery, torture, trafficking, pornography, murder, abortion or abuse -- is sinful. The body is not to be disdained, considered dirty or sinful, or discarded.
Consider how often in the Eucharist we refer to the body: in the eucharistic prayer, "For this is my body, which will be given up for you;" when receiving communion, "The body of Christ." In Scripture, we are confronted by St. Paul: "You are Christ's body, and individually members of it" (1 Cor 12:27), and, "Christ is head of the body, the Church" (Col 1:18).
The highest dignity afforded the human body after creation is that God came among us as a human being, in the person of Jesus.
This belief in the goodness and holiness of the human body has implications for our burial rites -- rites that are undergoing major transitions. We need to ask why.
A journey begins when a person is dying. The last rites of the Church, the sacraments of confession and communion as "viaticum" (food for the journey), prepare a person spiritually for the embrace of God. There are prayers at the time of death, when gathering in the presence of the body or when transferring the body to the church or place of burial. Three ritual moments in this journey are the wake, funeral Mass and rite of committal.
The dying and dead mirror the dying, death and burial of Jesus. The women accompany Jesus to His crucifixion. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea take His body down from the cross. Mary embraces the body of her dead Son. Jesus' body is wrapped in linens for burial. Thus, we keep watch with our dying in prayer and accompany their body in prayer at the vigil, Eucharist and burial.
Why are some Catholics no longer trusting or believing in the burial rites of our Church? More and more Catholics are not having wakes -- often, at the direction of the deceased -- or celebrating the Eucharist, in which we encounter our crucified and risen Lord.
The Church allows cremation, as long as it is not done for reasons at odds with Christian belief. But now, this is often immediately done, so the body is not present for a wake or funeral Mass.
Encountering a corpse is the only way to know someone is dead. Family and friends are not here one day and then simply not present. A person died.
Many people are seeing a person one moment and encountering a small box of cremated remains the next. What might this do to a person psychologically, emotionally and spiritually?
Once a body is cremated, there's no going back. I first encountered a corpse as an altar boy. Now, I come across people in their 30s and 40s who have never seen a corpse. How often are children missing from our funeral rites? Who is more afraid, the children or adults?
Why do we want "celebrations of a person's life" that look to the past, rather than funeral Masses in the presence of the risen Christ, which look forward with hope toward eternal life? Why do balloon releases seem to speak more to some people than Christ in the Eucharist?
Why is there a need for presenting what passes for eulogies to tell stories to make us laugh, when the human response to death is the healing power of sadness and tears?
Why are more and more people unwilling to surrender the dead to the Earth, but keeping cremated remains at home, wearing jewelry with cremated remains or scattering the ashes?
Burial is embedded in Christian tradition because Jesus was buried and we believe in the resurrection of the body. As I listen to Catholics and watch our burial rites replaced with secular symbols that often contradict Catholic Christian belief, I have observed:
• A relative, grandparent or parent may have been living their Catholic faith, but the children and grandchildren nor longer practice. They do what's expedient for themselves, because they are uncomfortable, so they don't have the prayers and rites to which the believer is entitled.
• Families seem to believe that, if a Catholic did not practice the faith, the Eucharist need not be offered. The Eucharist reflects the belief of the Christian community in the compassion and mercy of God, not solely the belief and practice of the deceased. As Rev. Paul Scalia preached at the funeral of his father, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, "We are praying for and giving thanks for God's inexplicable mercy to a sinner." Don't we all deserve such prayers?
• Some Catholics believe that death is a liberation from the "prison" of the body; thus, the body can be disposed of in any manner. In death, we do not fuse with Mother Nature or the universe. We remain a person, created by and taken up to live with God forever.
We really do not live in community now as much as we talk about it. Funerals are often semi-private family affairs, because our culture has become overly individualistic. We no longer experience the bodies of our dead as part of the body of Christ, the people of God. How sad.
May this begin the reflections and conversations we all must have in regard to our Christian understanding of death, our own mortality, our fears and our hope in eternal life.
(Father Mickiewicz is pastor of St. Mary's parish in Oneonta.)[[In-content Ad]]
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