Liturgy News

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,

where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,

each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

 the rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 

There is something very powerful in the traditional English country churchyard, beautifully described by Thomas Gray in his Elegy. As parishioners come for Sunday Mass, they walk between the graves of their ancestors. There is a palpable sense that we do not worship alone but in company with all those who have gone before us, a communion of saints, living and dead. The seeds of our faith are part of a tradition lived by our parents, grandparents and their grandparents.

In these enlightened times, we can no longer plant a graveyard around our churches. But it is possible – and many churches have already done this – to establish a columbarium to receive the ashes of the deceased in or near the church. Like the graveyard of old, this preserves the remains and names of those we love at the heart of the praying Christian community of the parish. Those from the community who die maintain a presence in the church where they worshipped. As the years go by, the columbarium records the names of the parish families and respectfully holds the remains of members who have gone before us. Thus the history of the parish is seen not just in the buildings but in the people who constitute the body of Christ.

In the Catholic funeral rites, the body of the deceased is the most important symbol of the person whom we farewell and commend to God’s mercy, and for whom we pray. We treat the body with reverence for this was the body washed in the water of baptism, fed with the bread of life and the cup of salvation, and embraced in the sign of peace. So we clothe the coffin in a baptismal pall and sprinkle it with water, embellish it with beautiful flowers, and venerate it with incense. Without the distractions of the deceased’s interests, hobbies and activities, we can focus on the dignity of the human person and our common destiny in God’s loving embrace.

After the Catholic funeral liturgy in the presence of the body, our care for the dead takes us from the church to the place of burial or cremation. The practice has been spreading in North America over the last twenty years (with the approval of the Holy See) of celebrating the funeral liturgy with the person’s ashes in the church in place of the actual body. Having the cremation before the funeral is not the ideal, nor is it a practice we ought to encourage in Australia. There are circumstances where it might be the best solution – for example where a person has died overseas and the body would need to be repatriated – but it ought remain the exception.

Nevertheless, although preference is given to a funeral in the presence of the body, Catholic practice is to treat a person’s ashes as we would the body, namely as a primary symbol of the person, and so due honour and respect. While the bishop’s permission may be obtained for scattering a person’s ashes, the human remains after cremation are normally buried or placed in a columbarium. This is where we can link up again with the church as the context for honouring the dead and keeping memory of those who have gone before us, marked with the sign of faith.

There is however a liturgical problem which is not entirely resolved – it concerns the double rite of committal (see OCF 212 and Praenotanda 15). When the body is taken from the church to the crematorium, the first rite of committal is celebrated in a way analogous to burial. The text allows us to commit the person’s body to the earth (graveside), to the deep (burial at sea), to the elements (cremation), or to its resting place (vault). This rite concludes the liturgy on the day of the funeral: the mourners are blessed and sent forth in the peace of Christ. However, when the ashes are returned to the family, there is a second rite of committal to be celebrated when they are buried or placed in the columbarium niche. What happens in a single rite at burial, is split into two phases – first the reverent disposal of the body and second the establishment of the sacred memorial of a person’s earthly remains. The two committal rites should not be seen as a mere repetition, but as different rites each with its distinctive meaning and emphasis. The selection and adaptation of liturgical texts will be critical.

As a stand-alone liturgy some weeks or months after the funeral, the committal of the ashes may include a longer Scripture reading and a homily (OCF 212), though sometimes the placement of the ashes is treated as a private event with only a few family members present. The church may often not be involved at all. In the case of a columbarium at the parish church, the rite would naturally take on a stronger communal focus. The priest or other pastoral leader would make of it a genuine liturgical rite. One could even imagine some elements of the rite of committal being incorporated into the Sunday Mass with a final procession to the columbarium. The deceased could be mentioned in the Eucharistic Prayer and the family included in the general intercessions. Family members would hold the ashes during a prayer at the end of Mass and the prayer of committal could be prayed upon arrival at the columbarium in the presence of some or all of the parish community.

Cremation itself and the practice of establishing a parish columbarium are still relatively new in Catholic practice. With pastoral sensitivity and liturgical acumen, we need to give our rites space to develop in culturally appropriate ways.