ARTICLE 2 - CHRISTIAN FUNERALS
1680 All the sacraments, and principally those of Christian initiation, have as their goal
the last Passover of the child of God which, through death, leads him into the life of the
Kingdom. Then what he confessed in faith and hope will be fulfilled: "I look for the
resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come."[182]
I. THE CHRISTIAN'S LAST PASSOVER
1681 The Christian meaning of death is revealed in the light of the Paschal mystery of
the death and resurrection of Christ in whom resides our only hope. The Christian who
dies in Christ Jesus is "away from the body and at home with the Lord."[183]
1682 For the Christian the day of death inaugurates, at the end of his sacramental life,
the fulfillment of his new birth begun at Baptism, the definitive "conformity" to "the
image of the Son" conferred by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and participation in the
feast of the Kingdom which was anticipated in the Eucharist- even if final purifications
are still necessary for him in order to be clothed with the nuptial garment.
1683 The Church who, as Mother, has borne the Christian sacramentally in her womb
during his earthly pilgrimage, accompanies him at his journey's end, in order to
surrender him "into the Father's hands." She offers to the Father, in Christ, the child of
his grace, and she commits to the earth, in hope, the seed of the body that will rise in
glory.[184] This offering is fully celebrated in the Eucharistic sacrifice; the blessings
before and after Mass are sacramentals.
II. THE CELEBRATION OF FUNERALS
1684 The Christian funeral is a liturgical celebration of the Church. The ministry of the
Church in this instance aims at expressing efficacious communion with the deceased, at the
participation in that communion of the community gathered for the funeral, and at the
proclamation of eternal life to the community.
1685 The different funeral rites express the Paschal character of Christian death and are
in keeping with the situations and traditions of each region, even as to the color of the
liturgical vestments worn.[186]
1686 The Order of Christian Funerals (Ordo exsequiarum) of the Roman liturgy gives
three types of funeral celebrations, corresponding to the three places in which they are
conducted (the home, the church, and the cemetery), and according to the importance
attached to them by the family, local customs, the culture, and popular piety. This order
of celebration is common to all the liturgical traditions and comprises four principal
elements:
1687 The greeting of the community. A greeting of faith begins the celebration.
Relatives and friends of the deceased are welcomed with a word of "consolation" (in the
New Testament sense of the Holy Spirit's power in hope).[187] The community
assembling in prayer also awaits the "words of eternal life." The death of a member of
the community (or the anniversary of a death, or the seventh or thirtieth day after death)
is an event that should lead beyond the perspectives of "this world" and should draw the
faithful into the true perspective of faith in the risen Christ.
1688 The liturgy of the Word during funerals demands very careful preparation because
the assembly present for the funeral may include some faithful who rarely attend the
liturgy, and friends of the deceased who are not Christians. The homily in particular
must "avoid the literary genre of funeral eulogy"[188] and illumine the mystery of
Christian death in the light of the risen Christ.
1689 The Eucharistic Sacrifice. When the celebration takes place in church the Eucharist
is the heart of the Paschal reality of Christian death.[189] In the Eucharist, the Church
expresses her efficacious communion with the departed: offering to the Father in the
Holy Spirit the sacrifice of the death and resurrection of Christ, she asks to purify his
child of his sins and their consequences, and to admit him to the Paschal fullness of the
table of the Kingdom.[190] It is by the Eucharist thus celebrated that the community of
the faithful, especially the family of the deceased, learn to live in communion with the
one who "has fallen asleep in the Lord," by communicating in the Body of Christ of
which he is a living member and, then, by praying for him and with him.
1690 A farewell to the deceased is his final "commendation to God" by the Church. It is
"the last farewell by which the Christian community greets one of its members before
his body is brought to its tomb."[191] The Byzantine tradition expresses this by the kiss
of farewell to the deceased: By this final greeting "we sing for his departure from this life
and separation from us, but also because there is a communion and a reunion. For even
dead, we are not at all separated from one another, because we all run the same course
and we will find one another again in the same place. We shall never be separated, for we
live for Christ, and now we are united with Christ as we go toward him . . . we shall all be
together in Christ."[192]
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