Rev. Algernon A. Brown.
Sermon CXXXVIII.
When Jesus was come into the house of the ruler,
and saw the minstrels and the crowd making a rout,
he said, "Give place."
—St. Matthew ix. 23.
One of the great difficulties against which God's church has to contend to-day is the spirit of worldliness which has crept in to a very serious extent among the faithful. There are many dear brethren among us who (as St. Paul says to-day in the Epistle) "mind earthly things"; Catholics who try as far as they can to conform themselves to this world and the fashions thereof. We can see this worldly spirit in the manner in which many Catholics dress, the style with which they decorate their houses, the way in which they speak and act. But there is another way by which this tendency is indicated. I mean the manner in which we bury our dead.
Now, certainly, there is nothing more beautiful to the eye of faith than a dead Christian body. What is it that lies there still, and motionless, and cold? A corpse? Yes; but something more than that. Brethren, that poor dead thing is beautiful, it is holy. Its head has been touched by the cleansing waters of baptism and anointed with holy chrism, its tongue has touched the Body and Blood of Christ. Its eyes, ears, and hands, all its senses have been anointed with holy oil. That poor body has been the temple of the Holy Ghost.
More than this: that cold clay is a germ, a seed from which one day shall rise a fairer flower than earth hath ever seen; for, as St. Paul says, "That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die first. And that which thou sowest thou sowest not the body that shall be, but bare grain, as of wheat or of some of the rest." Yes, brethren, this dead thing is the "bare grain," but in the eternal spring-time it shall bud forth into the full ear, for it is the seed of a body glorified by the power of God.
Oh! then, seeing how holy the dead body of a Christian is, no wonder that the church should surround the burial of it with a certain holy pomp.
She burns lights by its side, she carries it in procession, she sprinkles it with holy water, she censes it with incense. Not only does she pray for the soul, she also respects the body.