Ritual Conformity / Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book Agreed Upon by a Conference Held at All Saints, Margaret-street, 1880-1881

by Unknown

THE ORDER FOR

THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD.

267. Here is to be noted, that the Office ensuing is not to be used for any that die unbaptized, or excommunicate, or have laid violent hands upon themselves.

This order was adapted for a state of society in which the Parish Priest was intimately acquainted with the circumstances of every deceased person who was brought to be buried. Under the altered conditions of the present day, the officiating Priest being often in ignorance of the lives and deaths of those over whom he has to perform the office of the Church, has no power of inquiry given him, nor any authority to delay a burial for the purpose of making such inquiry. He is, therefore, not obliged to seek for these exceptions, nor to infer their existence, from his own previous knowledge of the matter, unless that knowledge be very clear, and founded upon certain evidence.

The exception of the unbaptized does not apply to those who have received Lay or Schismatical Baptism, provided the proper matter and form had been used.

The word 'excommunicate' means under formal sentence of excommunication passed by a competent Spiritual Court. It is equivalent to the words 'denounced excommunicated' in Canon 68. Even those who are 'ipso facto excommunicated,' by virtue of Canons 2 to 9, are not technically 'excommunicate,' until after trial and sentence, the words 'ipso facto' having in English Canon Law a special technical meaning, viz. that the offence cannot be punished by a sentence of less severity.

268. The Priest and Clerks meeting the Corpse at the entrance of the Churchyard, and going before it, either into the Church, or towards the Grave, shall say, or sing, I am the Resurrection, &c.

The alternative of saying the sentences going towards the grave is intended to meet exceptional cases of apprehended infection, when it might be dangerous to bring the body into the church. No distinction of spiritual condition was contemplated. It is clearly the general intention of the revisers of 1662 that the corpse should in ordinary cases be brought first into the church. But when under special circumstances it has been taken from the entrance of the churchyard directly to the grave, there seems no reason why the people should not return to the church after the interment, for the reading the Psalms and Lesson, as was expressly provided in the Prayer-Book of 1549.

When the corpse is taken first to a church, and afterwards to a distant cemetery, the part of the service which follows the Lesson being necessarily reserved for use at the grave, the previous part, i.e. the Sentences, Psalms, and Lesson, which were said at the church, should not be repeated at the grave.

269. After they are come into the Church, shall be read one or both of these Psalms following. I said, &c, and Lord, Thou hast been, &c.

When the corpse is brought into the church, it is usually placed in the Nave. In the burial of a Priest it would seem decorous to place the corpse in the Chancel. In either case the feet should be towards the east.

The place of the officiating Priest, in reading the Psalms and Lesson, is not specified. Sometimes it is the custom to stand at the feet of the corpse (when it is placed near the Chancel), so that the congregation may be in front of the Priest, but usually he would occupy 'the accustomed place.' The 90th Psalm seems the most appropriate for burial of an aged person.

270. Then shall follow the Lesson taken out of the fifteenth Chapter of the former Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians.

271. When they come to the Grave, while the Corpse is made ready to be laid into the earth, the Priest shall say, or the Priest and Clerks shall sing: Man that is born, &c.

In the Prayer-Book of 1549 the casting the earth upon the body was directed to be done by the Priest, with the words, 'I commend thy soul to God the Father Almighty.' This action was transferred from the Priest to 'some standing by,' when those words were omitted in 1552. The present rubric seems to direct that any one else is to perform the act. If done, as it usually is, by the Parish Clerk, or other inferior Church official, there is more dignity in it than if done by an unofficial person.

If there is a celebration of Holy Communion at the time of a burial, it is a separate service, and the celebrant must remember that the use of any Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, except the one for the day, is very difficult to justify as being in accordance with the rubrics of either service. See Rubric 6.

272. Then, while the earth shall be cast upon the Body by some standing by, the Priest shall say, Forasmuch as it hath, &c.

273. Then shall be said or sung, I heard a voice, &c.

274. Then the Priest shall say. Lord, have mercy, &c.