With the feast of All Saints Day and All Souls Day, two feasts in the Catholic Church which I really regard as one feast, it is natural for one’s thoughts to think of the deaths of loved ones and friends. With most birds migrating to warmer climates, the days getting colder, and nature transitioning into the cold, darkness of winter, it only amplifies a general feeling of loss.
With the death of my brother, Bill, on February 1, 2019, I have no living members of my nuclear family, with the exception of Ruthie, our children, and our grandchildren. My mom and dad, and all my siblings have died. My brother had indicated that he wished his cremains to be buried on the grave of my sister, so my whole family is buried together at Roselawn Cemetery in Roseville. Given this, I was surprised, when suggested by Ruthie that we go visit their gravesites, my reluctance to travel to the cemetery to “pay my respects”.
I can give a number of practical reasons for not visiting their gravesites. First, they are buried an hour and twenty minutes from my home. Second, after a year in which I have had four surgeries on my left ankle, I am not very steady walking on uneven surfaces. My family is buried inn an unlevel, slightly hilly plots in the cemetery. I feel very leery about trying to walk up and down a hill to get to and from their burial sites. Third, with the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic causing rising infections and deaths in the State of Minnesota, I am very reluctant to leave my home to go anywhere but the grocery store. With the number of Minnesotans who actually believe the falsehoods of our current president about the pandemic, and selfishly refuse to wear masks in public places, much less socially distance themselves from others, I try to avoid most public places (though I do note that the chance of being infected at a cemetery is slight to none).
Now all the reasons stated above are reasonable and practical. Over the next six months, I expect that I will grow more steady to walk on uneven surfaces. Over the next year, I expect that a vaccine will be developed in which I can place my trust so that I can be inoculated against the Covid-19 virus, thus making the long trip to the cemetery more reasonable and safe.
However, as reasonable and practical as these reasons may be, they are not the primary reasons why I do not feel compelled to go visit the gravesites of my mother, father, sister, and brother.
Over forty-two years of active church ministry, I have played, prayed, and presided over the funerals of countless people. I remember one month in which I was involved in over 20 funerals (the Angel of Death was certainly circling over the Church of St Wenceslaus that month). At an average, I was probably involved in 40 to 50 funerals a year. In spite of the number of funerals in which I have been involved, I never have grown callous about death and the impact of a loved one’s death on family, friends, and community. So why my reluctance to go visit the graves of my family? Am I some heartless bastard? Far from it.
Science informs us that our bodies wear out over time. I am a living example of this. I have had three artificial hip replacements, a knee replacement, and presently, a heavy duty metal plate with ten screws in my left ankle. I have so much metal in me, that my former pastor, Fr Kevin Clinton, called me Robo Deacon. I remember at an IANDS (International Association of Near Death Studies, an association of scientists, medical doctors, and near death survivors), the body being referred to as a “space suit” in which a person’s soul navigates our world. Over time, the “space suit” wears out and can no longer be used anymore. Over the 20+ years of my sister’s chronic illness, I visibly saw the disintegration of my sister’s body by her chronic illness. As mighty and powerful as my sister’s spirit is, and her strong will to live regardless of her illness, her body deteriorated to the point to which her spirit could no longer inhabit that body. Ruthie, our daughters, and I were with her when she died. I remember my father saying that at the time of her death, my sister’s face relaxed into a smile.
Paul, in the fourth chapter of his second letter to the Corinthians, speaks to this. “So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, ¹⁸ because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. (2nd Corinthians 4: 16-18, New Revised Standard Version)
In this part of his letter, Paul acknowledges that our bodies naturally waste away. He then informs us that this world and all we know is only a temporary place of being, for that which is real, that which is eternal lays just beyond our sight in our present plane of existence.
Paul continues at the beginning of the 5th Chapter using the metaphor of our bodies as a tent that is gradually destroyed. “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. ² For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling— ³ if indeed, when we have taken it off we will not be found naked. ⁴ For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. ⁵ He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. ⁶ So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord— ⁷ for we walk by faith, not by sight. ⁸ Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2nd Corinthians 5:1-7, New Revised Standard Version)
These two passages from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians have changed how I approach death, and the practice of visiting the graves of my loved ones. In the Catholic Church, to show respect for the human body in which the soul of a person is enfolded, we bury the human remains or cremains of the ones we love. We mark the places, in which the human remains or cremains are buried. However, if what Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians is true, namely, that the human soul yearns to jettison the “tent” in which we dwell and are burdened so that we may be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, the place in which our “tent” is buried is emptied of our presence. Who we are, our souls, no longer inhabit the dead body that is buried. Who we are, our souls, are now clothed in the glory of God. All the gravesite marks is that this person once lived and walked this earth. Who that person is is gone and has moved on to a different plane of existence.
The funeral prayers of the Catholic Church are seemingly contradictory. In one set of prayers, principally the burial prayers, they speak of the bodies of our loved ones being buried in this place until the second coming of Christ. The prayers give the impression that the souls of our loved ones are trapped in the decaying body or cremains buried in the ground until the time when Jesus comes at the end of time.
In second set of prayers, that of the funeral, the prayers speak of our loved ones leaving this plane of chronological time and entering into the timelessness of metaphysical time. Their souls are not trapped in their graves, rather, the second coming of Christ has already happened. The Last Judgment has already happened.
So why the contradiction in these prayers? The first set, those set in chronological time, are for those of us still living in chronological time. We tick off the years, the months, the days, the hours, and the minutes. For we who are trapped in chronological time, the fact is that the bodies of our loved ones are there buried at the cemetery. However, for our loved ones who have died, the second set of funeral prayers apply. They have entered metaphysical time, no longer trapped by the rising and setting of the sun year after year. They have entered into the freedom and joy of God’s timelessness. Their eyes have been opened and they look upon and now live in eternity.
I don’t need to visit the gravesites of my father and mother, my sister and my brother, to honor the memories of who they were. Who they are not imprisoned in a grave awaiting the second coming of Jesus. The very genes of my father and mother are a huge part of my own genetic makeup. I carry them in my body. For me, they are very much alive and well and present to me. All I need do is merely think their name, and they are there by my side. I remember them and many of my extended family and friends by name every night in prayer. I honor the date on which they were born in this world, and honor the date on which they were born into eternal life.
The only meaning their gravesite holds for me and for the world, is that they once lived and inhabited this earth. However, they have moved on to something far better than what this world offered. They are alive and well, and have reached the promise and happiness for which they longed while alive in their bodies. And, so, I am content to allow their bodies to rest at Roselawn Cemetery. I have no need to visit them. They are always here, present to me, at the mere thought of their name.
