Cathal Barry
The Christian meaning of death, according to the Church, is revealed in the light of the death and Resurrection of Christ, writes Cathal Barry
The Church teaches that all the sacraments, and principally those of Christian initiation, have as their goal the last Passover of the child of God which, through death, leads him into the life of the Kingdom.
The Christian meaning of death, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is “revealed in the light of the Paschal mystery of the death and Resurrection of Christ in whom resides our only hope”.
The Christian funeral is a liturgical celebration of the Church, the Catechism states.
“The ministry of the Church in this instance aims at expressing efficacious communion with the deceased, at the participation in that communion of the community gathered for the funeral, and at the proclamation of eternal life to the community,” the document says.
The different funeral rites, according to the Catechism, express the Paschal character of Christian death and are in keeping with the situations and traditions of each region, even as to the colour of the liturgical vestments worn.
The Order of Christian Funerals (Ordo exsequiarum) of the Roman liturgy gives three types of funeral celebrations, corresponding to the three places in which they are conducted (the home, the church and the cemetery), and according to the importance attached to them by the family, local customs, the culture and popular piety.
A greeting of faith begins the celebration. 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 (or the anniversary of a death) is an event that should lead beyond the perspectives of “this world” and should draw the faithful into the true perspective of faith in the risen Christ, the Catechism states.
Liturgy
The liturgy of the Word during funerals, according to the Catechism, demands very careful preparation because the assembly present for the funeral may include some faithful who rarely attend the liturgy, and friends of the deceased who are not Christians. The homily in particular must “avoid the literary genre of funeral eulogy” and illumine the mystery of Christian death in the light of the risen Christ.
When the celebration takes place in church the Eucharist is the heart of the Paschal reality of Christian death, the Catechism says.
“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.”
Finally, a farewell to the deceased is his final “commendation to God” by the Church. It is “the last farewell by which the Christian community greets one of its members before his body is brought to its tomb”.