Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 278 - Part II

YOUCAT Question n. 278 - Part II. What is the purpose of a Christian funeral?

(Youcat answer - repeated) A Christian funeral is a service performed by the Christian community for the benefit of its dead. It expresses the sorrow of the survivors, yet it always has a Paschal character. Ultimately, we die in Christ so as to celebrate with him the feast of the Resurrection.

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 1689) The Eucharistic Sacrifice. When the celebration takes place in church the Eucharist is the heart of the Paschal reality of Christian death (Cf. OCF 1). 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 (Cf. OCF 57). 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.

Reflecting and meditating 

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 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" (OCF 10). 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" (St. Simeon of Thessalonica, De ordine sepulturae. 336: PG 155, 684).

(The next question is: Why do we need faith and the sacraments in order to live a good, upright life?)