So then, dear friends, to show respect for the dead, to surround them with that pomp which the church wishes, is well and good; but to make a dead body an object about which to display earthly vanity and pride is to defile that which is holy and outrage that which is decent. Yet this is often done. In place of the simple shroud or the holy habit which used to be considered the proper raiment of the departed, we now see them arrayed in garments which vie in extravagance and fashion with those of the theatre and the ball-room. Oh! brethren, when I think of our dear Master's body, in Bethlehem's manger, wrapped up in swathing bands, in the holy garden enveloped in linen cloths, and even to this day reposing upon our altars on the fair white linen corporal, it shocks me to think of those Christian dead who go down to the tomb decked out in silks and lace, and satins and trinkets, as though they were rather the votaries of earth than the heirs of the kingdom of heaven. I seem to see the Master standing by, and saying, "Give place."
Again, what an abuse it is to see a body followed to the grave by a train of carriages which would often be more than enough for the funeral of a cardinal or a pope. What some one has called "the eternal fitness of things" requires that something of public display should be made over those whom God has set in authority. But to make such display over any ordinary Christian is simply absurd. Oh! my dear friends, far better spend your money to have Masses said for the soul than for a hundred vehicles to follow the body. Alas! I fear those hundred carriages and two hundred horses soothe your pride far more than they comfort the poor soul in purgatory who is panting and longing for the possession of God.
Let me end with a slight paraphrase of the text, such as we may imagine our Lord, were he now on earth, might use: "And when Jesus was come into the house of death, and saw the silks and the satins, and the worldly display, and the multitude making a tumult, and the horses and the carriages, and the garlands and the wreaths, and the feasting, he said: Give place, give place to me and to my church; and may the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen."
Rev. Algernon A. Brown.
Sermon CXXXIX.
Many walk, of whom I have told you often
(and now tell you weeping)
that they are enemies of the cross of Christ:
whose end is destruction,
whose God is their belly,
and whose glory is in their shame:
who mind earthly things.
—Philippians iii. 18, 19.
Here St. Paul gives us, dear brethren, a rule by which we may know, by their manner of living, the difference between the bad and the good anywhere in the world. This rule, however, shows us also who is a bad Christian and who is a good one. For it is too true that we can find many, calling themselves Catholics, who hate the cross, who find their happiness in sensuality, who love this world more than they love God, and who make a boast of their sins and crimes. The end of these is indeed destruction and eternal ruin.