The Funeral of Pope Saint John Paul II
As I write this blog, I’m riding in a car, fighting carsickness, heading from Dallas to Tulsa for a funeral. In our modern society, we often try not to think about death, or anything related to it, but funerals obviously draw our attention towards the inevitability of an ending that all of us will have to reckon with someday. So, if we try to avoid thinking about sad things like funerals, why do we feel the need to travel great distances to attend them? We go to such lengths because we know that our bodily presence makes a difference when it comes to our own grief, or in comforting the grief of others.
Even after a person has died, we treat that person’s body with reverence. The casket often rests in a place of honor so people can visit to pay final respects. Why would we treat a body this way if our bodies didn’t matter? At funerals people feel as though they get to say a final goodbye to the deceased. The person may not have the ability to hear or respond anymore, but we recognize, even if just subconsciously, that bodies reveal persons. For this reason, we can say, “I am my body.” At funerals, we seek to honor the person one last time through that person’s body.
Besides the goodness of seeing the body of our loved one first hand for a final time, our bodily presence can aid others in grieving. When Job grieved the deaths of his family and household, his friends came and sat by him for a week without speaking. Something about the presence of another person comforts us in our grief in a way that words often fail to achieve. When we gather together for a funeral, we live out this idea. We gather to honor the dead, to pray for the repose of their soul, and to comfort each other.
When funerals happen with a Requiem Mass, we recall our hope in the resurrection of the body. In many pre-Christian pagan cultures, they burned the dead and scattered their ashes to signify a return to nature. But as Christians, we know that our bodies don’t belong to nature, they belong to God. Funerals help us to recall this fact and to look forward to the resurrection of the body. As sad as the death of a loved one may make us, we are reminded of the joy of eternal life that Jesus offers us.
Though we don’t often enjoy funerals for the grief that accompanies them, we can appreciate them for the goodness of being physically near our loved ones. Funerals help us to grieve well, to comfort others, and to remember the hope God offers us. Please take a moment today to pray for the souls of all the faithful departed.
Priests often wear black vestments at Requiem Masses
Chris Tarantino is the Communications Director for TOBET. He studied History at The University at Texas A&M and has written for the Tennessee Register and Nashville Catholic.
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