I.
The Christian's Last Passover
1681
The Christian meaning of death is revealed in the light of the Paschal mystery
of the death and resurrection of Christ in whom resides our only hope. the
Christian who dies in Christ Jesus is "away from the body and at home with
the Lord."183
1682
For the Christian, the day of death inaugurates, at the end of his sacramental
life, the fulfillment of his new birth begun at Baptism, the definitive
"conformity" to "the image of the Son" conferred by the
anointing of the Holy Spirit, and participation in the feast of the Kingdom
which was anticipated in the Eucharist - even if final purifications are still
necessary for him in order to be clothed with the nuptial garment.
1683
The Church who, as Mother, has borne the Christian sacramentally in her womb
during his earthly pilgrimage, accompanies him at his journey's end, in order
to surrender him "into the Father's hands." She offers to the Father,
in Christ, the child of his grace, and she commits to the earth, in hope, the
seed of the body that will rise in glory.184 ( Cf. ⇒ 1 Cor 15:42-44.) This offering is fully celebrated
in the Eucharistic sacrifice; the blessings before and after Mass are
sacramentals.
II.
The Celebration of Funerals
1684
The Christian funeral confers on the deceased neither a sacrament nor a
sacramental since he has "passed" beyond the sacramental economy. It
is nonetheless a liturgical celebration of the Church.185 ( Cf. SC 81-82.) The ministry of the
Church 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.
1685
The different funeral rites express the Paschal character of Christian death
and are in keeping with the situations and traditions of each region, even as
to the color of the liturgical vestments worn.186
1686
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. This order of celebration is common to all the liturgical
traditions and comprises four principal elements:
1687
The greeting of the community. 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 the hope).187 ( Cf. ⇒ 1 Thess 4:18.) The community assembling in prayer also awaits the "words of
eternal life." the death of a member of the community (or the anniversary
of death or the seventh or fortieth day after 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.
1688
The liturgy of the Word during funerals 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"188 ( OCF 41.) and illumine the mystery of Christian death in the light of the risen Christ.
1689
The Eucharistic Sacrifice. When the celebration takes place in church the
Eucharist is the heart of the Paschal reality of Christian death.189 ( Cf. OCF 41.) 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 the 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.190 ( Cf. OCF 57.) It is by the Eucharist thus celebrated that the community of the
faithful, especially the family of the deceased, learn to live in communion
with the one who "has fallen asleep in the Lord," by communicating in
the Body of Christ of which he is a living member and, then, by praying for him
and with him.
1690
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."191 ( OCF 10.) The
Byzantine tradition expresses this by the kiss of farewell to the deceased:
By
this final greeting "we sing for his departure from this life and
separation from us, but also because there are communion and a reunion. For
even dead, we are not at all separated from one another, because we all run the
same course and we will find one another again in the same place. We shall
never be separated, for we live for Christ, and now we are united with Christ
as we go toward him . . . we shall all be together in Christ."192
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CHAPTER FOUR OTHER LITURGICAL CELEBRATIONS
PART TWO: THE CELEBRATION OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY
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