[Footnote 217: Levit. xix. 14.]
Another part of our duty to the dead is to treat their bodies with respect, and to give them decent burial. We do this for two reasons: for what they have been, and what they are to be. Their bodies have been the casket which held their souls, and we love their bodies for what their souls have been to God and to us. We love the eye that looked upon us with affection, the mouth that spoke to us words of truth and kindness, we love the ear that listened to our sorrows, and the hand that soothed and blessed us. We love that body which was the soul's instrument here in her works of piety and Christian charity. And we love that body for what it shall be. We see it as it will be when it springs from the grave on the morning of the Resurrection, sparkling with light, beautiful and immortal. And this is why we follow the dead to the grave. We go with them as we go part of the way home with a cherished guest. We go with them in token that the love that united us is not severed by death, but that we are still joined to them in hope and charity. Oh yes, it is right. Let the body be laid out decently; the limbs composed; the eyes closed for their long sleep. And when the time of burial comes, let all the ceremonies of the Holy Church lend their aid. Walk slow; let the priest in surplice and stole go before; light the candles and hold the cross aloft; sing the sweet and solemn chant; carry the body to the church and lay it before the Altar of God; bring incense and holy water, and let there be High Mass for the repose of the soul. Fitting ceremonies! "Beautiful and touching rites! chosen with a heavenly still to comfort the mourner and to honor the dead. But alas! alas! how do we see this duty to the dead sometimes fulfilled! A Catholic is dead. It is true there are candles and holy water, but where are the pious prayers? The neighbors are gathered together, but it is not to pray. The glasses and the pipes speak of a different kind of meeting. Yes, they have come there, there to that chamber, the Court of Death and the Threshold of Eternity, to hold a drunken wake. The night wears on with stories, sometimes even obscene and filthy, and as liquor does its work, curses and blasphemies mingle with the noisy, senseless cries and yells of drunken men. Are these orgies meant to insult the dead? Do these revellers wish to make us believe that their departed friend was, body and soul, the child of Hell as much as they? So the wake is kept, and now for the funeral. The man died early in the week, but of course he must be buried on Sunday. Sunday is the worst day of the week for a funeral, because it is the day appointed for the public worship of God, and it is wrong to draw men away from the church on that day without necessity, yet a funeral must by all means be on a Sunday. And why? Because a greater crowd can be got together on that day, and the object is to have a crowd, and to make people say, such a one had a decent funeral. The family are poor, nevertheless a large number of carriages are hired, and filled with a set of people who regard the whole thing as a picnic or excursion. Some of them have already "taken a drop," and so little sense of religion have they left, that sometimes at the grave itself, sometimes in returning from it, they raise brawls and riots that bring disgrace and contempt at once on the man they have buried and the faith they profess. Do you call this a decent funeral?" I say it is a sin. A sin of pride and ostentation. A sin of scandal and excess. A sin of robbery and cruelty—of robbery and cruelty toward the poor children from whose hungry mouths and naked backs are taken the extravagant expenses of this ambitious display. How much better to have a small funeral! a funeral remarkable for nothing but its modesty and simplicity, to which only the few are called who knew the dead and loved him, who follow him to his long home with serious thoughts, like thinking men and Christians, remembering that before long they must go with him into the grave and lie down beside him, and who return home to remember his soul before God as often as they kneel down to pray.
And this brings me, in the last place, to speak of the duty of praying for the dead. It is a most consoling privilege of our holy faith. Death indeed fixes our eternal condition irrevocably. "If the tree fall to the south or to the north, in what place soever it shall fall, there shall it be." [Footnote 218]
[Footnote 218: Eccles. xi. 3.]
But the good do not always enter heaven immediately. If the sharp process by which God purifies His children on earth has not wrought its full effect, it must be carried on for a while longer in that hidden receptacle in which faithful souls await their summons to the presence of God. And during this period our prayers in their behalf are of great avail. No part of our religion has more undeniable proofs of its antiquity. As far back as the fourth century of the Christian era, St. Cyril testifies that it was the custom "to pray for those who had departed this life, believing it to be a great assistance to those souls for whom prayers are offered while the Holy and Tremendous Sacrifice is going on." [Footnote 219]
[Footnote 219: St. Cyril, Cat., lect. v., n. 9.]
The tombstones of the early Christians attest the same practice, and St. Augustine, speaking not as a doctor, but recording a chapter of his own history, lets us into the innermost feelings of the Church of his day on this subject. In his Confessions he tells us that his mother St. Monica, shortly before her death, looked at him and said: "Lay this body anywhere, be not concerned about that, only I beg of you, that wheresoever you be, you make remembrance of me at the Lord's Altar." And the saint goes on to tell how he fulfilled this request, how after her death the "Sacrifice of our Ransom" was offered for her, and how fervently he continued to pray for her. But his own words are best: "Though my mother lived in such a manner that Thy Name is much praised in her faith and manners, yet * * * I entreat Thee, O God of my heart, for her sins. Hear me, I beseech Thee, through that cure of our wounds that hung upon the Tree, and that sitting now at Thy Right Hand maketh intercession for us. I know that she did mercifully, and from her heart forgave to her debtors their trespasses; do Thou likewise forgive to her her debts, if she hath also contracted any in those many years she lived after the saving water. Forgive them, O Lord, forgive them. * * * Let no one separate her from Thy protection. Let not the lion and the dragon either by force or fraud interpose himself. Let her rest in peace, together with her husband; and do Thou inspire Thy servants that as many as shall read this may remember at Thy Altar Thy handmaid Monica, with Patricius her husband." [Footnote 220]
[Footnote 220: St. Augustine's, Confessions, book ix., c. 13.]
Are we as faithful to pray for our departed friends, and to get prayers said for them? They wait the time of their deliverance with painful longing. They cannot hasten it themselves. They cannot merit. Their hands are tied. They are at our mercy. The Church indeed prays for these in her litanies, her offices, and her Masses, but how little do we, their friends and relations, pray for them. The patriarch Joseph, when he foretold to Pharao's butler, his fellow prisoner, his speedy restoration to honor, said to him: "Only remember me when it shall be well with thee, and do me this kindness to put Pharao in mind to take me out of this prison." [Footnote 221]