"If our hope in Christ has been for this life only"
6th Sunday C,
Cobh
16 February 2025
My friends,
The celebration of funerals is changing, and further diversity is likely into the near future given the changed patterns of belief about life and death. I’m not speaking of the increasing percentage who choose cremation over burial. While some choose cremation as a statement of unbelief in an afterlife – most cremation ceremonies take place after a church funeral liturgy.
This shift of faith and culture ‘round life and its meaning and how its end is marked is becoming more challenging and difficult for priests in parishes across the country. This change is reflected in the tension that can arise ‘round the demand for a eulogy and other emblems. Recent public debate round the issues indicates how often the responsibility of the priest/celebrant to be a guardian of the funeral liturgy according to the church norms is misunderstood.
The pillar of all Christian faith is the Paschal Mystery of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. It is that core element of faith that enables us to be hopeful in the face of death, which can be so painful and cruel in some circumstances. It is our faith in the Risen Christ that in the words of the preface make ‘our hope rich with immortality’ – a genuine sense for our loved one ‘life has changed not ended.’
It is understandable that if people have no religious dimension to their living life that prayer and ritual around death is unlikely to make sense. Yet ironically it is precisely such non-religious people are most respectful of those who wish to express their loss through the solemn ritual and prayer of the Church. Such people have usually thought through these things.
It is more difficult when people who have lapsed from faith practice and become unfamiliar with good liturgical practice seek to manipulate and shape the liturgy in a way that empties it of its faith dimension. This is not necessarily done deliberately but often unaware of its impact in the longer term. It hasn’t helped that some celebrity funerals have highjacked the liturgy and rendered it farcical.
The priests and those who assist them at funerals, the undertakers and parish liturgy groups share this important responsibility to guard the funeral liturgy as a solemn, though a glad celebration of the life of each Christian disciple. By all means we honour the good that is in every person but also acknowledging the flaw and failure of their human circumstances.
If we get balance right, we do a great service to bereaved families. It allows the community of faith to support and serve them at the most vulnerable time in their lives.
“If our hope in Christ has been for this life only, we are the most unfortunate of people.
But Christ has in fact been raised from the dead, the first fruits of all who have fallen asleep.”
1 Cor 15: 19-20
