THE END TIMES

As we enter into the last few weeks of the Church calendar our Sunday Scripture readings focus on the “End Times”.

In this fall season we see the world around us grow colder and darker yet we know as the leaves fall they will produce new life when the light and warmth of spring return. The readings of this season offer us the opportunity to reflect upon our own mortality and our faith in Resurrection and eternal life.

As we also celebrate All Saints Day and All Souls Day in early November we are called to ponder how we as Catholics ritualize and celebrate our passing from this life to eternal life.

I would like to offer some practical and timely suggestions in this matter.

First of all over the last few years more and more people are choosing to celebrate their loved one’s passing in a more expedient and easy way by forgoing a wake and funeral liturgy as is our time honored Catholic tradition. Even when their parents have been active and devoted Catholics many adult children opt to not take their loved one to Church for Christian burial. The time honored tradition as Catholics to have wake and funeral mass offer us the opportunity to tell stories, to laugh, to cry, to grieve our loved one and to offer others the chance to share this important time with us.

We begin our journey with Christ at the baptismal font in church and we end our earthly pilgrimage and enter into the eternal life of heaven surrounded by the symbols of our Baptism at our funeral liturgy. Each time we gather at the Lord’s Table in church we are made aware that it is a sign of the heavenly banquet we hopefully will share for all eternity. What better way to bid a loving farewell to those closest to us than at the Lord’s Table that unites us so deeply.

One other concern that I have is that many people seem to tell their families they do not want a wake or funeral. I know how many families feel constricted by that wish for they themselves are in such great need of the time and ritual to grieve and find support and celebrate the earthly life of their loved one and bid farewell to them as they enter into eternal life. We need to remember the wake and funeral are NOT for the deceased but rather to give comfort and support for the LIVING. In making our own plans for our death and burial, we need to remember this important fact.

Lastly, many people have questions regarding our Catholic stand on cremation. For many centuries it was forbidden for Catholics to be cremated due to the fact that atheists saw cremation as a way to deny the belief in eternal life. Obviously, that is not the way today. Cremation is certainly acceptable as a means of burial for Catholics. We would recommend for those who desire cremation that their family rent a simple casket for the wake and Liturgy of Christian burial for their loved one and then be taken for cremation. This way we have the chance to Give honor to the body of our loved one which served as a temple of the Holy Spirit. The proper response is to then bury the cremans intact in the ground or in a columbarium/mausoleum to show them proper dignity and to remember we are all a part of the earth from which we have come.

I hope these words have offered us some better understanding of the beauty and the humanness of our Catholic way of celebrating death and new life.