CHRISTIAN FUNERAL

In the face of death, the Church confidently proclaims that God has created each person for eternal life, and that Jesus, by his death and resurrection has broken the chains of sin and death that bound humanity. 

At the death of a Christian, whose life of faith was begun in the waters of baptism and nourished at the Eucharist, the Church intercedes on behalf of the deceased, because  of its confident belief that death is not the end nor does it break the bonds forged in life.  
It is the Church who ministers to the sorrowing and consoles them in the funeral rites with the comforting word of God and the sacrament of the Eucharist as well as commends the dead to God’s merciful love.

Accordingly, the community affirms and express the union of the Church on earth with the Church in heaven in the one great communion of saints.  Though separated from the living, the dead are still one with the community of believers on earth.  At the rite of final commendation and farewell, the community acknowledges the reality of separation and commends the deceased to God.  In this way it recognizes the spiritual bond that exists between the living and dead and proclaims its belief that all the faithful will be raised up and reunited in the new heaven and the new earth, where death will be no more.

Links : cemeteries.rcbo.org