Homily - 5 November 2023 - On the importance of cemeteries

The Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Dear brothers and sisters,

This month of November is traditionally given over to praying for the dead, both our own beloved dead and the dead who have been sadly forgotten, as well as to caring for their graves.

When he presided over a Mass offered for the Bishops and Cardinals who died this past year, the Holy Father Pope Francis noted that “the Lord halts before the tragedy of death.”[1] He offers this reflection concerning the raising of the dead son of the widow of Naim (cf. Luke 7:11-17):

He is called Lord – the God who exercises lordship over all things – in the very act of showing compassion for a widowed mother who lost, along with her only son, her reason for living. Here we see our God, whose divinity shines forth in contact with our sorrow and grief, for his is a heart full of compassion. The raising of that young man, the gift of life that overcomes death, has its source precisely there, in the compassion of the Lord, who is moved by death, the greatest cause of our suffering. How important it is to communicate that same look of compassion to all those who grieve for the death of their loved ones![2]

This widow’s son was not a close friend of Jesus, as was Lazarus, at whose death he wept (cf. John 11:35). Even so, Jesus clearly interrupts his life to show compassion to this woman. This is part of the example of love he has left us (cf. John 13:34, 15); it is part of what has always distinguished Christians from those who do not know him.

Our care for the dead does not end with the conclusion of the funeral liturgy or even with the burial; rather, our care for the dead must continue until the Lord Jesus returns in his glory. This is so because, as Saint Augustine said, “a man’s body is no mere adornment, or external convenience; it belongs to his very nature as a man.”[3]

The Church looks to cemeteries, where the bodies of her children are buried, as places of “rest and hope” for the same reason: cemeteries are those places where the mortal remains of the baptized, the temples of the Holy Spirit, are placed in reverential honor until they are re-enlivened by the breath of God on the last day.[4] The very ground of Catholic cemeteries is blessed so they also become places of prayer. Saint Damien, for example, prayed his daily rosary within the cemetery of his deceased parishioners.

It is unfortunate that “cemeteries, which once surrounded the local church and were truly ‘holy ground’ and indicated the link between Christ and the dead, are now located at some distance outside of the towns and cities, since urban planning no longer includes the provision of cemeteries.[5] The removal of cemeteries from the central area of our daily lives has likely lead to a lessening of our attention to the dead. “The Christian, who must be conscious of and familiar with the idea of death, cannot interiorly accept the phenomenon of the "intolerance of the dead", which deprives the dead of all acceptance in the city of the living.”[6]

It was once common for Catholics to visit the graves of their family and friends at least in the month of November, keeping in mind that “the ties of friendship and affection which knit us as one throughout our lives do not unravel with death.”[7] It was once common to leave flowers at the graves of family and friends throughout the year as tokens of love. It was once common to regularly clean the graves of family and friends. How I wish each of these customs were revivified in our day.

While the Church tolerates the cremation of her sons and daughters – unless cremation is chosen to deny the resurrection of the dead – she much prefers and strongly encourages the burial of the body. As Christians, we cannot forget that, in memory of the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord, the mystery that illumines the Christian meaning of death, burial is above all the most fitting way to express faith and hope in the resurrection of the body.”[8]

 

In either case, the Church requires the mortal remains of the baptized to be interred in a cemetery or other blessed location, such as a columbarium, to encourage “family members and the whole Christian community to pray for and remember the dead, while at the same time fostering the veneration of martyrs and saints.”[9] At the same time,

 

through the practice of burying the dead in cemeteries, in churches or their environs, Christian tradition has upheld the relationship between the living and the dead and has opposed any tendency to minimize, or relegate to the purely private sphere, the event of death and the meaning it has for Christians.

 

Death does not separate the living from the dead; indeed, gathered around the altar of the Lord we are always very near to those joined to Christ, whether living or dead.

 

Because the Church does not wish us to forget the dead but to remember them in our prayers, she grants a plenary (full), “applicable only to the souls in purgatory, is granted to the faithful who, on any and each day from November 1 to 8, devoutly visit a cemetery and pray, if only mentally, for the departed.”[10] A partial indulgence is available on any day of the year to encourage visits to cemeteries and prayers for the dead.

 

Let us, then, not be afraid to halt before death with the Lord Jesus. Let us not be annoyed to let death interrupt our lives in order to show care to the faithful departed. Remembering our beloved and the forgotten dead to God, let us pray:

 

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.

And let perpetual light shine upon them.

 

May they rest in peace.

Amen.

 

May their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.

---

[1] Pope Francis, Homily, 3 November 2023.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Saint Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, I.13.

[4] Blessing of a Cemetery, 1432.

[5] Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, 259.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Vigil for the Deceased, Order of Christian Funerals, 71.

[8] Ad resurgendum cum Christo, 3.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Manual of Indulgences, 29 §1.

A pilgrimage to Tolkien's grave

When I left Rome to spend Holy Week in Scotland, I intended to return to Rome on Easter Monday to finish working on my thesis. I had just submitted what I hoped was a nearly final draft of the thesis - with the title of "Order and Age: Confirmation in the Present Legislation of the Latin Church" - to my director and expected him to have many corrections, changes, and recommendations. To my delight, he made only a couple of grammatical corrections, offered two suggestions I was free to incorporate or not, and told me it was ready for submission without his further review.

To celebrate the completion of my thesis, I changed my travel plans and took the train from Edinburgh to London with the sole purpose of visiting the grave of the man Tom Shippey calls "the Chrétien de Troyes of the twentieth century," J.R.R. Tolkien.

Eight days ago I boarded the train from London to Oxford, but not before buying a bouquet of flowers to lay at his grave:

After the train pulled into the station, I spent some time wandering about the famous university city, making good use of The Tolkien Society's helpful guide, "Tolkien in Oxford" to find a couple of the houses in which the Tolkiens lived and to visit the Bodleian Library, which houses some of Tolkien's original art.

Because I wanted this to be a real pilgrimage, I set out on foot from the center of Oxford and made my way past The Eagle and Child out to Wolvercote Cemetery, some three miles from city center.

Google maps told me that after I turned left at the intersection where the cemetery began, I would find the entrance to the cemetery on the right. When I arrived at the gate, I saw this sign:

If you can't make out the altered closing time for Monday - Thursday, it has been changed to 2:00. I stood before the sign at about 3:30 p.m. and my heart sank; I had arrived too late and wouldn't be able to visit the grave of the man I revere so highly. But then I read the sign more closely and realized there must be another gate that was still open.

As I made my way back towards the intersection, I asked a woman who appeared to be a local where the main entrance to the cemetery was. She directed me to return to the intersection where I turned left and to make a left turn; the entrance would immediately be on the left. She was right:

My heart rose as I passed through the gate and I chuckled a bit when I saw the first sign pointing the way to the grave of Professor and Mrs. Tolkien:

The cemetery itself was smaller than I expected it would be and was rather charming, as far as cemeteries go:

My happiness deepened as I passed one sign after another for the Tolkiens' grave (nine in total, if I counted correctly until I passed the last sign which, for an unknown reason, was on the opposite side of the footpath as the other signs:

At long last, I reached the goal of my pilgrimage, a pilgrimage I had wanted to make for many years:

Many tokens of affection had been left for The Professor, from marbles to coins to flowers. There was a receipt from The Eagle and Child and a letter written by an American student studying at Oxford. In the letter (which was not in an envelope) was written on my birthday, the author expressed well the sentiments of my heart:

...I wish I could have known you. I wish I could have shook your hand and told you how much your writing has meant to me. And how it breaks my heart to know that this is as close to you as I will ever come in this life. For death is not the end, but only a beginning.

As strange as it might be, I feel somehow like I know you. Your stories of Middle-earth have broken and mended my heart.... I look forward to the day when I can meet you in glory and tell you just how much you've changed the world you left behind.

After placing my small token of affection at his grave, I told The Professor how has writings have affected me, especially his letters.

As I expressed my gratitude to Tolkien as best I could, my heart was filled with so great a joy that tears flowed uncontrollably down my cheeks; I was easily as happy as a boy on Christmas morning because one of my greatest hopes had been achieved. As I wept tears of joy, I remembered the words Tolkien gave to Gandalf: "I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil" (The Lord of the Rings, 6.VIII). I prayed that two of us may meet merrily in heaven where, as Tolkien said, "the presence of the great [him] does not depress the small [me]" (On Fairy Stories).

Having brought my favorite beverage with me on my little pilgrimage (all the way from London), I raised a toast to "The Professor" as some of us do on Tolkien's birthday.

I stayed at his grave for about forty-five minutes and the thought arose in my heart that I did not want to leave without having my picture taken at the grave. At about this same moment, a man who had been meticulously cleaning a nearby grave appeared ready to leave the cemetery. I approached him and asked apologetically if he would be willing to take my picture at nearby grave. He kindly agreed to do so (I suspect he'd been asked many times over the years):

I didn't catch his name before he left, but I went over to look at the headstone to which he gave such loving care:

I can only presume that Miss Druce is his sister. Please, out of gratitude for the simple kindness he showed me, please remember him and Miss Druce in your prayers.

As I made my way from the Tolkiens' grave to cemetery entrance, a man asked me if I knew where Tolkien's grave us. He was asking for a husband and wife and their daughter. I assured them they were very close and took them to the grave. As Providence would have it, they were Americans and Tolkien's grave was their last stop on their vacation in England before they returned to the U.S. the next day. I bumped into them a couple more times in Oxford later that evening.

Because by that time my feet were growing sore, I took the bus from the cemetery back to Oxford where I had an early dinner of fish and chips at The Eagle and Child, where Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and the Inklings met so frequently:

 

All in all, it was a day I won't soon forget and I'm very grateful for having been allowed to visit the grave of the man whose writings have so deeply touched my heart.

A squirrelly moment

After attending my first Mass celebrated in the extraordinary form this afternoon at the Shrine of St. Rose of Lima, I went to the cemetery to pray at the graves of my parents. I try to do this every time I return to Quincy, at least for a few minutes.

This afternoon my prayer was distracted by two squirrels, both with rather bushy tails. One of them seemed to be running from the other who was not a bit deterred. It was quite funny.

I burst out laughing (that's not something you often do in a cemetery) when the one squirrel went behind a tombstone that was about two feet high and three feet long. This particular stone had flowers on top of it and two vases with flowers on either side of it. The second squirrel hopped on top of the stone and climbed up on the flowers, while the squirrel on the ground looked at it.

The second squirrel then put its head into one of the vases while keeping its body on the stone; the squirrel was now upside down. I think he must have been looking for nuts. After trying to peer inside the vase, he pulled himself out, picked up the flowers that were in the vase, tossed them on the ground and popped his head back in the vase. (That's when I burst out laughing.) It might be one of the funniest things I've seen. Not finding anything of note in the vase, the two squirrels went off and happily climbed a tree.

Before leaving the cemetery I put the flowers back in the vase.

Blessing of Graves

I forgot to post this earlier.

At 4:00 p.m. this afternoon we will visit the cemetery to bless the graves and to pray for our beloved dead.

We will gather at the entrance of the cemetery and process to the cross where the blessing will take place.

If you are in the area and are free, please join us.

On cemeteries

I like cemeteries. I always have, and the older the cemetery is the more I like it.

There is something very comforting and consoling about a cemetery. They are quiet and peaceful and are perfect for reflection.

I have been known to pull off of a highway to take a stroll through a cemetery and more often than not I bless the dead as I drive past a cemetery.

Walking through a cemetery one cannot help but become aware of the brevity of life as you see the dates of birth and of death. Who are these people, some who are remembered by many, others by a few, and still others by none? What were their lives like? What gave their lives purpose and direction? The important things in life come to the bear upon the soul especially when looking at one a few people choose to place on tombstones these days.

Cemeteries are a perfect place to pray, precisely because they help to refocus us on the things eternal.

In a letter written to his brother, Blessed Father Damien of Molokai confessed:

My greatest pleasure is to go [to the cemetery] to say my beads, and meditate on that unending happiness which so many of them are already enjoying.

When was the last time you walked through a cemetery, praying for the dead and for yourself? As summer draws to a close and days grow cooler I would encourage you to do so, pondering, with Blessed Damien, the joys of heaven (not to mention performing a spiritual work of mercy and maybe even gaining an indulgence).

I have often said that if we live with our death in mind that we will live well (or something very near it). Remembering that we will, in fact, die, and that the way we live has impact on our eternal destiny, helps keep us grounded in truth and in love, namely in Jesus Christ.

Such a notion is very often today said to be morbid. It is not; it is quite Christian. Father Damien also wrote to his brother, saying:

I confess to you, my dear brother, that the cemetery and the hut of the dying are my best meditation books, as well as for the benefit of my own soul in view of preparing my instructions.

Living with our own death in mind will also help us show others how to follow Christ. For in meditating upon the Last Things, we cannot help but dwell upon the merciful love of Christ, of him who calls all people to himself. In this way we see the truth of the words of Saint Paul: "None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself" (Romans 14:7).