Catholic Funerals - Proclaiming Christian Hope

We want you to be quite certain, brothers, about those who have died, to make sure that you do not grieve about them, like the other people who have no hope. (1Thessalonians 4:13)

In this month of the Holy Souls, and prompted by the second reading for Sunday 12th November, I would like to offer in this first blog post an appreciation of some of the distinctive features of a Catholic funeral – perhaps one part of our faith that really is quite different from more widespread contemporary culture, and many other Christians.

For us, consolation is found in our faith and hope in “the promise of immortality to come” (Preface of Christian Death I). We remain bound to one another, not simply in remembering those who have died, but in “the hope that one day we shall see those who have died again and enjoy their friendship” (Final Commendation, Invitation to Prayer). This confidence in the resurrection was so important to St Paul that he declared that if our hope in Christ is only in this life then we are most to be pitied. (1Cor15:19)

In the funeral rites we give thanks to God “for the gift of a life which has now been returned to God, the author of life and the hope of the just” and “we commend them to God’s merciful love and plead for the forgiveness of their sins” (Introduction, Order of Christian Funerals, 5-6). We have a role that God has given us to play in their journey to heaven and their happiness in the life to come. We know that sin marks our lives – sometimes major faults that we have, sometimes flaws that still need healing and almost always a share in the brokenness of the world in which we live. Very rarely are we ready for the complete vision of the love of God. (St John Henry Newman’s Dream of Gerontius, set to music by Edward Elgar captures this mystery with sublime beauty.)

Hence we pray for those who have died – and hope that others will pray for us too when our time comes. Just as we are called to cooperate with God’s work of creation in caring for our common home so we are called to share in his work of salvation as part of the body of Christ. Our prayer for the dead is foreshadowed in the Old Testament by the praiseworthy sacrifices offered for those who had died by Judas Maccabaeus (2Macc12:43-45). Yes, we have a sure and certain hope that God will give them the happiness they have always desired, but he does so at least partly on account of our prayers.

The Funeral Mass, the supreme sacrifice and prayer of Christ, is the principal celebration of the Catholic, Christian funeral. In it the life and death of the members of the body of Christ are joined to the passion and death of Jesus, that we might share also in his resurrection. The Eucharist is also foretaste and promise of the banquet of heaven to which we are all called and our eating and drinking at the table of the Lord is the closest we can be on earth to those who have died.

In our funeral rites, in continuity with 2000 years of practice, we accompany the body on its last journey, from the home to the church (spiritual home) and to the place of rest. We honour it as it was the temple of the Holy Spirit. Even if the procession is reduced, it still mirrors the journey of human life, the pilgrimage to the heavenly Jerusalem. The presence of the body and the laying to rest of the remains in our midst affirms the spiritual bond which remains between the living and the dead, and our belief in a personal resurrection to come.

All this we do in hope with love, with gratitude, in the knowledge that life is changed, not ended.