Christian burial
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A Christian Burial is the burial of a deceased person with ecclesiastical rites in consecrated ground.
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[edit] History and Antecedents of the Roman Catholic Burial ritual
[edit] Early Historical Evidence
Among the Greeks and Romans, both cremation and burial were practiced. However, the Jews and most of the nations of antiquity buried their dead. In addition, early Christians used only burial, based on direct testimony of Tertullian[1] and from the stress laid upon the analogy between the resurrection of the body and the Resurrection of Christ[2].
In the light of the dogma of the resurrection of the body as well as of Jewish tradition[3], the burial of the mortal remains of the Christian dead has always been regarded as an act of religious import. It is surrounded at all times with some measure of religious ceremony.
Very little is known with regard to the burial of the dead in the early Christian centuries. The first Christians likely followed the national customs of the people among whom they lived, as long as they were not directly idolatrous. St. Jerome, in his account of the death of St. Paul the Hermit, speaks of the singing of hymns and psalms while the body is carried to the grave as an observance belonging to ancient Christian tradition.
Several historical writings indicate that in the fourth and fifth centuries, the offering of the Holy Sacrifice was an essential feature in the last solemn rites. These writings include: St. Gregory of Nyssa’s detailed description of the funeral of St. Macrina, Augustine of Hippo|St. Augustine’s references to his mother St. Monica, the Apostolical Constitutions (Book VII), and the "Celestial Hierarchy" of Pseudo-Dionysius.
The "Spanish Ordinals", published by Dom Ferotin, are likely the earliest detailed account of the funeral ceremony. The explanation of the ritual represents the Spanish practice of the latter part of the seventh century. Included in the writing is a description of "the Order of what the clerics of any city ought to do when their bishop falls into a mortal sickness." It details the steps of ringing church bells, reciting psalms, and cleaning and dressing the body.
[edit] The Wake
The custom of watching by the dead (the wake) is an ancient practice. The origins are not entirely known. It may have been a Christian observance, attended with the chanting of psalms, or was adopted from paganism, and the singing of psalms was introduced to "Christianize" it.
In the Middle Ages, among the monastic orders, the custom was practiced in a desire to perform religious duties and was seen as beneficial. By appointing relays of monks to succeed one another, orderly provision was made that the corpse would never be left without prayer.
Among secular persons, these nocturnal meetings were sometimes an occasion of grave abuses, especially in the matter of eating and drinking. The following is found in the Anglo-Saxon canons of Ælfric, addressed to the clergy:
Ye shall not rejoice on account of men deceased nor attend on the corpse unless ye be thereto invited. When ye are thereto invited then forbid ye the heathen songs (haethenan sangas) of the laymen and their loud cachinnations; nor eat ye nor drink where the corpse lieth therein, lest ye be imitators of the heathenism which they there commit.[4]
In the earliest Ambrosian ritual (eighth or ninth century), which Magistretti pronounces to be derived from Rome[5], the funeral is broken up into stages: at the house of the deceased, on the way to the church, at the church, from the church to the grave, and at the grave side. But it is also clear that there was originally something of the nature of a wake (vigilioe) consisting in the chanting of the whole Psalter beside the dead man at his home.[6]
[edit] Absolution
The Absoute became common in the second half of the eleventh century. It involves laying a form of absolution upon the breast of the deceased. This is enjoined in the monastic constitutions of Archbishop Lanfranc.[7] Occasionally, a leaden cross etched with a few words was used for this purpose. Many such crosses have been recovered in opening tombs belonging to this period. In the Greek Church today, a long paper of absolution, usually a printed form, is first read over the deceased and then put into his hand and left with him in the grave.
[edit] Offertory
The medieval ritual also included an offertory in the funeral of well known and distinguished people. Generous offerings were made in money, and in kind, in the hope of benefiting the soul of the deceased. It was also usual to lead his war-horse up the church fully accoutered and to present it to the priest at the altar rails. It would later be redeemed by a money payment.
[edit] Catholic Burial Ritual
The various Catholic religious observances surrounding mortal remains can be divided into three stages.
[edit] Conveyance of the Body to the Church
The first stage involves the parish priest and other clergy going to the house of the deceased. One cleric carries the cross and another carries a cup of holy water. Before the coffin is removed from the house it is sprinkled with the holy water. The priest, with his assistants, says the psalm De profundis with the antiphon Si iniquitates. Then the procession sets out for the church. The cross-bearer goes first, followed by members of the clergy carrying lighted candles. The priest walks immediately before the coffin, and the friends of the deceased and others walk behind it.
As they leave the house, the priest intones the antiphon Exsultabunt Domino, and then the psalm Miserere is recited or chanted in alternate verses by the cantors and clergy. On reaching the church the antiphon Exsultabunt is repeated. As the body is placed "in the middle of the church," the responsorial Subvenite is recited.
Historical precedence provides that if the corpse is a layman, the feet are to be turned towards the altar. If the corpse is a priest, then the position is reversed, the head being towards the altar. The earliest reference to this is in Johann Burchard's "Diary". Burchard was the master of ceremonies to Pope Innocent VIII and Pope Alexander VI.
A rule also exists that both before the altar and in the grave, the feet of all Christians should be pointed to the East. This custom is alluded to by Bishop Hildebert at the beginning of the twelfth century[8], and its symbolism is discussed by Guillaume Durand. "A man ought so to be buried", he says, "that while his head lies to the West his feet are turned to the East…"[9] The idea seems to be that the bishop (or priest) in death should occupy the same position in the church as during life, facing his people who he taught and blessed in Christ's name.
[edit] Ceremony in the Church
The second stage is comprised of a cycle of prayers, the funeral Mass, and absolution. Candles are lighted around the coffin, and they are allowed to burn throughout this stage.
[edit] Prayers
The prayers offered are the Office of the Dead. Throughout the prayers, certain omissions are made. For example, each psalm ends with Requiem aeternam instead of the Gloria Patri.
[edit] Mass for the Dead
As in the case of the Office, the Mass for the Dead (Missa de Requie) is chiefly distinguished from ordinary Masses by certain omissions. Some of these may be due to the fact that this Mass was formerly regarded as supplementary to the Mass of the day. In other cases it preserves the tradition of a more primitive age. The suppression of the Alleluia, Gloria in excelsis, and the Gloria Patri seems to point to a sense of the incongruity of joyful themes in the presence of God's searching and inscrutable judgments.[10] In the early Christian ages, however, it would seem that the Alleluia, especially in the East, was regarded as especially appropriate to funerals.
During the Mass it is customary to distribute candles to the congregation. These are to be lighted during the Gospel, during the latter part of the Holy Sacrifice from the Elevation to the Communion, and during the absolution which follows the Mass. As already remarked the association of lights with Christian funerals is very ancient, and liturgists here recognize a symbolical reference to baptism whereby Christians are made the children of Light, as well as a concrete reminder of the oft repeated prayer et lux perpetua luceat eis.[11]
[edit] Absolution
After Mass follows the absolution, which are prayers for pardon over the corpse before it is laid in the grave. These prayers, like those said by the graveside, ought never to be omitted. After several standard prayers, psalms, and the use of incense, the priest pronounces the prayer of absolution, sometimes in the following form:
O God, Whose attribute it is always to have mercy and to spare, we humbly present our prayers to Thee for the souls of Thy servants which Thou has this day called out of this world, beseeching Thee not to deliver them into the hands of the enemy, nor to forget them for ever, but to command Thy holy angels to receive them, and to bear them into paradise; that as they have believed and hoped in Thee they may be delivered from the pains of hell and inherit eternal life through Christ our Lord. Amen.
It may be noted that these prayers of absolution are not demands made to God, but are prayers imploring God's mercy upon the deceased.
[edit] Ceremony by the Graveside
After the absolution, the body is carried to the grave. The tomb or burial plot is then blessed, if it has not been blessed previously. A grave newly dug in an already consecrated cemetery is considered blessed, and requires no further consecration. However, a mausoleum erected above ground or even a brick chamber beneath the surface is regarded as needing blessing when used for the first time. This blessing is short and consists only of a single prayer after which the body is again sprinkled with holy water and incensed. Apart from this, the service at the graveside is very brief.
The priest intones the antiphon "I am the Resurrection and the Life", after which the coffin is lowered into the grave and the Canticle Benedictus is recited or sung. Then the antiphon is repeated again, the Lord's Prayer is said silently, while the coffin is again sprinkled with holy water. Finally, after one or two brief responses, the following ancient prayer is said:
Grant this mercy, O Lord, we beseech Thee, to Thy servant departed, that he may not receive in punishment the requital of his deeds who in desire did keep Thy will, and as the true faith here united him to the company of the faithful, so may Thy mercy unite him above to the choirs of angels. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The final petition made by the priest is "May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace." At that point, the graveside ceremony and the burial is complete.
[edit] Greek Orthodox Church Burial Ritual
The full burial service of the Greek Orthodox Church is lengthy, but there are one or two points in which it bears a close resemblance to the Latin Rite.
There is a general use of lighted candles, holy water, incense and the tolling of bells. After a relatively short service at the house of the deceased, the corpse is brought to the church, and placed there while the Pannychis, a mournful service of psalmody, is recited or sung. A solemn absolution is pronounced over the body before it is placed in the grave.
There are several features unique to the Eastern Church. A crown, in practice a paper band which represents it, is placed upon the dead layman's head. The priest is anointed with oil and his face is covered with the aër, the veil with which the sacraments are covered during the Mass. Also the open Gospel is laid upon his breast as in the early Spanish ordinal. The Alleluia is sung as part of the service and a symbolical farewell is taken of the deceased by a last kiss.
Upon the altar stands a dish with a cake made of wheat and honey, emblematic of the grain which falling to the ground dies and brings forth much fruit. The burial rite of the Greeks is discussed in several sources.[12][13]
[edit] Burial confraternities
Even from the period of the catacombs such associations seem to have existed among the Christians and they no doubt imitated to some extent in their organization the pagan collegia for the same purpose.
Through-out the Middle Ages the guilds to a very large extent were burial confraternities; at any rate the seemly carrying out of the funeral rites at the death of any of their members together with a provision of Masses for his soul form an almost invariable feature in the constitutions of such guilds.
But still more directly to the purpose we find certain organizations formed to carry out the burial of the dead and friendless as a work of charity. The most celebrated of these was the "Misericordia" of Florence, believed to have been instituted in 1244 by Pier Bossi, and surviving to the present day. It is an organization which associates in this work of mercy the members of all ranks of society. Their self-imposed task is not limited to escorting the dead to their last resting-place, but they discharge the functions of an ambulance corps, dealing with accidents as they occur and carrying the sick to the hospitals. When on duty the members wear a dress which completely envelops and disguises them Even the face is hidden by a covering in which only two holes are left for eyes.
[edit] References
- ^ "De Corona" (P.L., II, 92, 795; cf. Minucius Felix, "Octavius", xi in P.L., III, 266)
- ^ 1 Corinthians 15:42; cf. Tertullian, "De Animâ", lv; St. Augustine, "De civitate Dei", I, 13)
- ^ cf. Tobit 1:21; 12:12; Sirach 38:16; 2 Maccabees 12:39
- ^ Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, 448
- ^ Manuale Ambrosianum, Milan, 1905, I, 67 sqq.
- ^ Magistretti, ib., I, 70
- ^ Thurston, Life of St. Hugh of Lincoln, 219
- ^ P.L., CLXXI, 896
- ^ Ration. Div. Off., VII, 35
- ^ Cf. Ceriani, Circa obligationem Officii Defunctorum, 9.
- ^ Thalhofer, Liturgik, II, 529.
- ^ Goar, "Euchologium Graecorum" (Paris, 1647), 423 sqq.
- ^ Al. Dmitrieoski, "Euchologium Graecorum" (Kiev, 1895-1901)
[edit] See also
[edit] Source
- This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913. Some sections may be outdated.
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