Last Saturday we welcomed several speakers to give presentations on making end-of-life decisions. One spoke of the importance of having an Advanced Medical Directive and designating a Health Care Representative who has authority to make medical decisions on behalf of an incapacitated patient. Another talked about what’s involved in purchasing a cemetery plot and the costs that one can expect in funeral planning. There was also a financial planner who gave general insights into the different ways one can arrange one’s finances to minimize complications for one’s beneficiaries. I thought the speakers did a very nice job, and the feedback from those who attended was positive.
In my introduction to the morning’s programming, I reminded the group that we had just celebrated All Souls Day, on which we pray for the faithful departed. It is a time of year when we contemplate our own mortality and consider whether we are preparing well for death. An important part of the life of the parish priest is being present to people who have lost a loved one. In my experience, the death of a family member brings not only sadness but a feeling of being overwhelmed by all the decisions to make. It can bring enormous relief to a family when their loved one has taken the time to make his or her wishes explicitly known with regard to the preferred funeral home, the wake, and the funeral Mass. Making these wishes known in writing is also important because sometimes family members do not have the same appreciation for the Catholic faith as their deceased loved one did. In some cases, the only way to ensure that you will have a proper wake, funeral Mass, and burial is to purchase a cemetery plot and pre-pay for the arrangements that you want with the funeral home of your choice while you are still healthy enough to do so on your own.
When making such arrangements, one must decide whether he or she wants to be interred intact or to be cremated. Since 1997, the Church has given permission for cremated remains to be present at a funeral Mass instead of the body. But it’s important to know that this is not the ideal envisioned by the Church. The ideal is to leave the body intact, so that loved ones may gather around the body at a wake, with the funeral Mass taking place with the body the next day. This allows the body to be received at the church, sprinkled with holy water, dressed in the white “baptismal garment” called a pall, and escorted into the church as part of the liturgy. If one desires to be cremated, the Church envisions this happening immediately after the funeral Mass with the body, the burial of the cremated remains taking place shortly thereafter. But the Church is also sensitive to the considerable costs associated with burying the dead. Often, cremation is offered as a more affordable alternative to a traditional burial. But the Church is clear that if a family opts for cremation, the remains must be buried intact in sacred ground or entombed in a mausoleum. Neither the sprinkling of ashes nor the keeping of an urn in one’s home are permissible.
Talking about death makes people uncomfortable in our culture. But as something that comes for us all, we should be able to think about it and discuss it without undue fear, especially since we place our trust in Jesus, who is risen from the dead. Indeed, Our Lord says on many occasions that we must be prepared for death. Above all, we must be prepared morally, spiritually, and sacramentally. But it is also good to prepare in other ways, thereby helping our loved ones cut through some of the confusion that accompanies grief and ensuring that our bodies and souls are treated with proper reverence through the experience of death.
posted 11/12/23
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 