A local funeral director recently shared with me that more and more people are doing nothing to publicly acknowledge and honor a family member who has died. He related that he and other funeral directors are receiving an increasing number of requests to just have the body of the deceased family member cremated and placed in an urn for the family to take and do with as they please.
As dismaying as this growing tendency is, there is a sense in which it is not surprising. In a society that permits abortion, a practice that completely negates the value of human life at its very beginning, it is sadly understandable that an increasing number of people choose not to publicly honor a loved one when that person leaves this world.
A significant factor that contributes to this is a growing loss of connectedness among people in our time. At its roots, our Faith testifies that we are relational creatures. Our maleness or our femaleness express this basic reality about ourselves. The Lord originally created human beings to live under Him in harmony with one another.
As individuals, we can each be likened to a piece of a gigantic beautiful puzzle that our Creator is designing. Each piece of a puzzle is needed and needs the other pieces to complete the puzzle.
If we were to take individual pieces of a puzzle and put them in different rooms of a residence, the individual pieces would lose their meaning. They would be perceived as an object to be disposed of.
The loss of connectedness that pervades our world results from sin. When we sin, we violate basic relationships for which we were created, namely with ourselves, others, the environment and with the Lord. Sin affects the way in which we relate to all aspects and developments of the world in which we live. Take, for example, the growing development of technology and technological devices. What a blessing technology can be and is. On the one hand, we would not want to go back in many cases and live without it.
It can be easy for any of us, however, to allow ourselves to be mastered by technological devices. With the tools of technology, we can enter into our own little worlds to which we can become wedded. In this process, communication and meaningful interaction with one another decrease. Life can become more and more depersonalized. As a result, human life can be perceived as impersonal and even trivial.
To remedy this tragic situation, the Lord invites all persons to worship Him with others on a regular basis. Faithful worship, especially at Mass, can strengthen and renew that sense of connectedness within ourselves, with one another, with the environment and with the Lord, a reality for which all persons yearn.
Weekly worship enables us to appreciate our proper place with one another and to value the activities of our daily lives. As we experience ourselves in the bigger setting in which we live, a gift that we are offered as we worship, we sense that going to school, returning to work, taking a vacation, receiving medical attention and other legitimate activities fall into place. Worship directs us to help one another to find the Lord’s proper place for ourselves in this world that He has redeemed.
As in response to worship, we work to enable one another to find our proper place in this world, we will grow in the ability to appreciate the precious nature of our lives and that of all other persons at each stage of life’s development, from the moment of conception until the time that we die. As pieces of Lord’s grand puzzle, we will be motivated to publicly and appropriately honor each person who has been entrusted to us in a special way from the time of conception until and beyond the time of that person’s death.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Fr. Nelson Beaver – Pastor