Funerals. Relevance. Perspective.

7/17/2019

My uncle's funeral was today. The priest presiding over the burial focused almost exclusively on Jesus and the promise of resurrection. There were no long, sentimental digressions about the life my uncle lived, or the lives he touched, or his achievements during his time in this world, or how much he would by missed, or how the world would feel emptier without his presence in it.

The service was not a celebration of life, but a celebration of resurrection and life eternal; a solemn and pertinent reminder of the gift Jesus offers to every single one of us - but only if we choose to accept it. In this respect, I found the funeral service the priest gave to be profoundly relevant. It provided the proper perspective of death and mortality, a perspective that would benefit most contemporary people if they ever bothered to show any serious interest in their own mortality and the gift Christ offers.

6 Comments

S.K. Orr link

7/18/2019 13:46:49

I'm grateful that you were able to reconnect with your uncle before his death, Francis. And I appreciate your observations on the tone of his funeral. The "celebrations of life" that are so prevalent today are very difficult to sit through, for the reasons you touched upon. How good it would be if we returned to having funerals -- with all the somber and serious elements they contain -- instead of the foolishness of the faux canonizations we see in these times.

Francis Berger

7/18/2019 20:06:29

Thank you, S.K. I am grateful, too. The funeral service was forward-looking rather than retrospective, and it seems to me that's what funeral services should be about.

Fr. Steve Janos link

7/18/2019 22:10:59

Memory Eternal! (Вечная Память)! "Their memory is from generation unto generation"... "With the Saints give rest..."...

Too little religio-philosophic a discussion has existed, even within the Eastern Church, as to the radical significance of the dynamic of the eternalisation of memory...

Quoting myself, I somewhere once wrote: "Spiritually, if the dead be not alive in Christ for us, then we ourself be not truly alive in Christ, and in vain be our belief in His Holy Resurrection"... and --
"Death is the ultimate outrage, the ultimate blasphemy against the Living God"...

The Russian thinker, N F Fedorov, -- instead of the typical passive Christian attitude towards the reposed, -- proposed a pro-active stance of co-working with God towards the Universal Resurrection;
(he took it to extreme a material level, of reconstituting the dust of our ancestors, but the gist of his insight remains valid). Berdyaev wrote excellent an article on him:
http://www.berdyaev.com/berdiaev/berd_lib/1915_186.html

My condolences to You and Your family, amidst respect for the priest mentioned.

frsj

Francis Berger

7/18/2019 22:28:03

Thank you for your condolences, Fr. Steve.

"Spiritually, if the dead be not alive in Christ for us, then we ourself be not truly alive in Christ, and in vain be our belief in His Holy Resurrection".

This profound statement reflects a great deal of what the priest communicated during the funeral service, which is why I found the service so moving.

And thanks also for the link.

Bookslinger

7/20/2019 01:50:49

The hand has merely laid aside the glove. The glove will eventually be reconstituted and be re-inhabited by the hand, which continues to live in the interim.

Francis Berger

7/20/2019 08:31:15

That was well put. Thanks, Bookslinger.

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Funerals. Relevance. Perspective.

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