ST. JUDE CATHOLIC COMMUNITY    PAGE SEVEN   AUGUST 13, 2000 

Why Should Religious Traditions & Ritual Be Encouraged for Funerals?

From the time we are born, we are constantly going through important changes in our life cycle.    Through our parents and school years, we learn about religion and traditions.    Many families have been passed down special traditions over many generations, from how to celebrate a birth to Christmas to New Year's to marriage and to death. When we reach important life changes, we usually acknowledge these changes with rituals --- rites of passage.     Often these rituals have religious significance.   

The birth of any person, is usually greeted by much anticipation, joy, and gladness.   By contrast, the death of any person is usually accompanied by sorrow, fear, distress and uncertainty.     All over our world, people have religious traditions and rituals for every occasion of our life cycle.     For our Jewish brothers and sisters, from Bris to Bar/Bat Mitzvahs to Weddings to Vidui.    For us Catholic Christians, from Baptism to First Communion to Confirmation to Weddings to Anointing of the Sick to Liturgy of Christian Burial.

Religious rituals are symbolic acts which we consider signs of some special activity or relationship with God.     For instance, the pouring of water and invoking the Persons of the Trinity in Baptism, point-outs that in this religious ritual the person being baptized dies to self to live with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit by putting-on the Life of Christ and so becoming one with Christ.   Thus, making that person an heir to heaven, a temple of the Holy Spirit, a part of the Body of the Christ, that is, the Church.   

Funeral rituals give us an opportunity to "send off" the soul of our loved ones.    They are rituals that facilitate salvation for the deceased and healing for the bereaved.    Funeral rituals, also are rituals of "binding" and of "releasing".       They bind the mourners together in one common grief and anguish of heart.     They also facilitate the separation from the one who has died.     They give comfort in the faith that one day we will all be together forever in our Father's eternal home.   They bind all together in seeking God's healing mercy for the soul of the deceased, that he/she may rest in peace in the bosom of Abraham in the house of God forever.     And, they help all the mourners to prepare themselves for the day they too will be called forth by the Lord.

Survivors are helped by participating fully in funeral rituals.    They are helped to mourn, and to find comfort in faith.     The funeral ritual helps aid in the healing process.

The absolutely best way to participate in the funeral ritual, is to "embrace fully the dying person" and prepare the funeral ritual with them.      Until you have done this, you may sit back and say "How horrific!"    But, most times the dying person knows they are dying, but they are afraid to tell the family as they love them too much to tell them and hurt them, so they keep it to themselves.    While the family, on the other

hand, does not want to tell the dying person for fear of hurting him/her.     This happens so, so often!   Often with the priest or health care person in-between with both sharing and swearing the priest or health care person to secrecy.    However, when the dying person can be fully embraced by his/her family so that the dying person and the family can share during that period, what love! what comfort! is shared!     Last words of love and of tenderness, and of sadness and of happy wonderful memories, are exchanged and so deeply appreciated.     No regrets ever happen afterwards  about not saying what one wanted to say!      Also, planning the funeral ritual together from the music to the Readings to whom will do what, allows the family to know how pleased their deceased relative is in knowing the comfort they are receiving during the celebration.    What binding together!     What comfort!      What memories of love!

The funeral rituals provide such a unique vehicle for strengthening family ties, and for giving energy to the feeling of community with all the mourners present and with the deceased.    They proclaim that a life has been lived to the fullness, and now that life is resting peacefully with the Lord.      And that one day, we shall all be together forever in our Father's eternal home.

It is for this reason, that we begin our funeral ritual with a "biography of the deceased", so that all may know the wonderful life and works the deceased person has done, and how that person is loved by those left behind.    And then together we thank God for the blessings shared with the deceased during his/her life, as we also seek God's merciful healing and comfort for the failings of the deceased and ourselves.           

Eternal rest  grant unto them O Lord!      May the angels lead you into paradise!     May the martyrs come to welcome you home, and take you to the holy city, the new and eternal Jerusalem!       May the choir of angels welcome you!      Where Lazarus is poor no longer, may you have eternal rest!

One of the most special ministries in our parish, is "Embracing the Dying".    Those in this ministry embrace those who are dying and their families.     They serve as spiritual hospice persons.     Helping the dying person and the family to share last thoughts and feelings.     Helping the family to accept the impending death of a loved one.     Helping the dying person with their family to compose their funeral service:  music, Readings, etc.    So that on the day of the Christian Burial ritual, the family truly feels one with their beloved who has died and gone to the Lord, and knows that their loved one helped put this together as what they wanted all to feel, and be comforted by, during the funeral rituals.

If you would like to join this ministry of love and compassion, please contact either Debbie Meier at 818 - 597 - 1464, or Jean Marie Cull at 805 - 497 - 6473.