Funerals
Funerals
Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski once observed that when persons are actually “faced by death,” they turn almost immediately instead “to the promise of life.” In other words, “death and its denial—immortality”—coincide (1954, p. 47). In many ways funerals express these dualities and their contrasting, ambivalent feelings and realities. In effect, funerals commonly aim to turn death, which appears to represent an end, into its opposite, a transition to another kind of life. Moreover, they seek to reintegrate the group and especially those most bereaved following the sense of loss that death has eventuated.
The funeral is almost always a social occasion, a ceremony at which those with a relationship to the deceased or the bereaved are assembled in order to mark the change in status that death has occasioned. The function of the funeral is to dispose of the corpse and to recognize the sense of loss among the bereaved. It also seeks to demonstrate to all of the assembled that while a particular person has died, life itself and the group go on. Hence while the disposal of the cadaver, an essential feature of the funeral, expresses dread of the corpse and a desire to be rid of it and its impurities while also confirming the reality and finality of the death, almost everything else about the funeral asserts immortality and continuity: of the soul, the community, a relationship with the deceased, and faith in the future.
The public nature of the funeral as well as the common understanding that attendance at it trumps most other social obligations both reflect the fact that death is never just the concern of the immediately bereaved or only the affliction of those who have died. While ostensibly carried out for the dead person, the funeral rites in fact have important effects and benefits for the living, both as individuals and a group. These rites commonly entail practices that aim to confront death with repeated assertions of life and expressions and ceremonial displays that make the bereaved feel that they are not completely abandoned. Moreover, they aim to show that death may momentarily bring about chaos, but the funeral reinstates order. It does so with ritual.
At a funeral’s successful conclusion, the dead body is disposed of and becomes separated from the person who inhabited it and the living are endowed with an enhanced sense of solidarity as they mourn and console one another back to life, while incorporating the deceased as part of a living memory. While this process is largely metaphorical in most funeral ceremonies, in some cases, the process is quite literal. Among the Melanesians of New Guinea, for example, parts of the dead person are ingested by some of the bereaved and later vomited. This practice allows the spirit of the deceased to remain within, and a sense of solidarity both among the mourners and between the mourners and the deceased to be established while the physical remains of the corpse are removed. The Catholic rite of communion, in which the body and spirit of Christ is ingested by those who recall him through the eating of consecrated bread and wine, may be understood as a reiteration of such funereal rites. All this shows that death ends a life but not a relationship.
Funerals may generally be divided into component parts. First comes the preparation of the corpse for disposal and its display. This may include washing, anointing or embalming, dressing, and even some forms of restoring the body. Often this is accompanied by a temporary public placement of the cadaver among the living, although always camouflaging its decay. This might, for example, include placing flowers or perfumes around the body. This use of flowers is as old as Neanderthal man, whose skeletons in the caves of Iraq were found covered with a layer of pollen, suggesting they were enclosed with flora.
In some cultures this public display may last several days—sometimes called “lying in state.” In others, this is called “the viewing,” and often the body is “improved” or adorned so that the repulsion of death does not overwhelm the living. Public placement includes placement of the body on a catafalque, sometimes in a casket, in shrouds, on a pyre, or some other visible site. In its origins, this public display of the corpse may have served as a means of making certain that the person was truly dead, as the certification of death was historically by no means always as accurate as it is today. The presence of the prepared corpse in public view thus provided both an opportunity to persuade everyone that the person was indeed deceased while also in some way mitigating the dreadful vision of death and its reminder of universal mortality.
When bodies were placed in private homes, particularly in Victorian England, they were often put in the parlor, the room in which people gathered. This led to the parlor taking the name, “living room,” as a way of offsetting the stigma and dread associated with the placement of corpses in it. In time, in North America, the placement of the corpse was moved from people’s homes and parlors or living rooms to special sites that came to be called “funeral parlors” or “funeral homes.” At times, funerals are carried on in places of worship, though in a number of religious traditions the corpse is considered defiling and hence not put in what are considered sacred places.
While a growing corps of professionals handle the preparation of the body, in some religious traditions volunteers from within the community of deceased or the bereaved carry this out. Thus, for example, among traditionally observant Jews, the preparations are carried out by the Chevra Kaddisha (holy fellowship) whose ritual washing, grooming, clothing, and preparation of the dead for burial are called tahara (purification).
The second part of the funeral consists of the rites and ceremonies of farewell. These include prayers, eulogies, and the marking of the mourners in some visible way. In some cultures, wailing or other forms of mourning are part of the funeral. But the possibilities of rites are as rich and varied as human culture. Thus, for example, among the Hmong of Vietnam, practices used during funeral ceremonies include: sacrificing a live chicken to place at the head of a deceased person in order that the soul of the chicken can lead the soul of the deceased person back to their ancestral home; burning gold paper money for the deceased to take on the journey home; and calling a shaman to communicate with the souls of the deceased to understand their wishes and communicate those wishes to family members. In general, the ceremonies of the funeral act to control the emotional damage that death may otherwise inflict by holding it within the framework of ritual behavior.
Part of the farewells consists of presenting the idea that death is really an alternative form of life, and the funeral initiates the transition from one form of life to another. In this sense, funerals may be seen as liminal or threshold rites, as described by Arnold van Gennep in his Rites of Passage (1960). For some groups, Jews for example, this period of transition should be short so as to hasten reintegration. For others, the farewell is extended so as to hold onto to the deceased a bit longer.
To assure the passage from death to a new life, the corpse must in some way be transformed. As Robert Hertz explained, “to make an object or living being pass from this world into the next, to free or create the soul, it must be destroyed,” and then only as the “visible object vanishes,” and becomes invisible, can it be “reconstructed in the beyond, transformed to a greater or less degree” (1960, p. 46). The removal or destruction of the dead body and the beginning of mourning marks the third and final part of the funeral. Among Hindus this is accomplished with the burning of the body and in India with floating it along the holy Ganges River. Among the Abrahamic faiths, this ends with the removal of the body for burial, although increasingly in modern society cremation is chosen as an option by many.
The transformation of the corpse is paralleled by a transformation of the bereaved into mourners. This is often marked either by activities they carry on at and after the funeral that publicly demonstrate their sense of loss. In some cases, the bereaved may tear their garments or hair, as if to reflect the tearing down of their own veneer of civility and social order that death itself has initiated. Of course by making this sort of rending ceremonial, funerary practices emotionally rein in the act and thereby assist the mourners in exercising self-control and limit the trauma of loss in public and to the collective life. The bereaved may be sequestered for a period of mourning that parallels the period of the deceased’s journey to a new life. The conclusion of mourning marks the true end of the funeral, when the dead have reached their spiritual destination and the bereaved re-enter a full social life. Often this is marked with eating and drinking, activities associated with continuity and life.
SEE ALSO Burial Grounds; Culture; Death and Dying; Heaven; Hell; Malinowski, Bronislaw; Religion; Rituals
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Heilman, Samuel. 2001. When a Jew Dies. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hertz, Robert. 1960. A Contribution to the Study of the Collective Representation of Death. Trans. Rodney and Claudia Needham. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1954. Magic Science and Religion. New York: Anchor.
Van Gennep, Arnold. 1960. The Rites of Passage. Trans. Monika Vizedom and Gabrielle Caffee. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Samuel C. Heilman
Funeral Rites
FUNERAL RITES
The Greco-Roman funeral procession—the funus — what everyone understood to be the funeral, was adopted by Christians as a metaphor for their journey as earthly church toward the heavenly Jerusalem. They spoke of this journey and its expression in the funeral procession as "going to Christ" (ire ad Christum ). For ancient Christians, the mystery of divine incarnation and the promise of resurrection in the likeness of the risen Christ transformed superstitious concerns about the lot of the dead. Belief in the sacredness of the human body, the mystery of Christ's incarnation and resurrection, and the resurrection of the dead traditionally found expression in the care taken to prepare the bodies of the deceased for burial. The body that participated integrally in all the expressions of sacramental life became the primary object of liturgical attention in funeral liturgy. The prayers and ritual gestures of Catholic funeral rites affirm the Church's reverence for the mortal remains of her decreased members. Whatever form human mortal remains take, they are due Christian respect as the final form of the flesh and blood person who lived and died and will rise in relationship with God.
A Brief History. In the Greco-Roman culture of earliest Christianity burial and cremation existed side by side. Christians followed the Jewish custom of burial. By mid third century, burial became the preferred proper ritual attention to the dead, necessary to secure happiness in the afterlife. Throwing a handful of earth on the corpse or, in the case of cremation, cutting off a small bone to be buried later were essential rites. Even the dead stranger was to be given a ritual burial, and, when cremations did take place, burial of the ashes in the earth or a tomb was the norm.
The earliest Christian writings include examples of prayers and hymns for use at funerals, marking the beginning of the Christian obsequiae or services for the dead. Long before Christians had churches, they buried their dead brothers and sisters and kept their memory alive in their cemeteries (koimeteria or dormitories for the dead [see burial ii (early christian)]). Later they constructed their first basilicas over the site of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection and over the graves of martyrs. In time the Christian funeral developed into rites that took place "at church," and burial in the churchyard or entombment in or along the walls of the church building itself became the tradition. These cemeteries are iconographic witnesses to Christian care of the dead. Their funerary decorations proclaimed that the dead had gone to the Paradise of the Shepherd, to the place of refreshment, light, and peace. They linked the "refreshment" of the funeral meal with the Eucharist, the food of life. Other decorations reflected singing and prayer on the part of individuals and the community.
In like manner Christians invested other funeral practices with their religious memory and faith. Activities,
such as washing and anointing of the dead, the solemn funus or funeral procession to the cemetery, and the tomb itself, became symbols of liturgy. To the Hebrew psalms they added Christian hymns; the eucharistic banquet came to supersede the memorial funeral meal; Jewish and pagan funerary art inspired still newer Christian representations expressing the mystery of redemption. Prayer for the dead became a duty in Christian charity. Augustine, for example, taught that prayer, almsgiving, and especially offering the Eucharist were efficacious for the dead before the judgment seat of God. In time, two attitudes of Christian faith, one hopeful of God's mercy, the other fearful of God's justice, marked the increasingly familiar ways Christians translated that faith into worship and constituted the origin of a Christian funeral liturgy.
Orders of funeral service survive from the ninth century. They reveal a pattern of prayerful preparation of the corpse (washing, clothing), vigil or wake with psalms, hymns and Scripture readings, a procession with the body to the church complex for burial to the accompaniment of psalms and prayers. Gradually, the celebration of Mass, associated with Christian death from the beginning, became a formal part of the funeral rites themselves and the church, the focal point of the liturgy. Throughout the Middle Ages, despite the different customs from region to region and between cathedral and monastic practices, a threefold structure of the classic Catholic funeral evolved as the norm. The Rituale ordered by the Council of Trent made it the universal practice of the Church. The Order of Christian Funerals (OCF) embodies this tradition as Vigil and Related Rites, Funeral Liturgy, Rite of Committal, like three panels of a triptych, and thus preserves the spirit of the funeral as metaphor for the Christian journey to Christ.
Vigil and Related Rites. The Vigil and Related Rites and Prayers are opportunities for liturgical prayer that may be celebrated during the time between death and the principal Funeral Liturgy or committal. They enable the specifically Christian expressions of faith and hope to find an appropriate place in the earliest moments of leave-taking. Although the term "vigil" in the OCF designates a particular liturgical rite of "vigil for the deceased," the whole time span surrounding death is a liminal time of "vigil" or wake. Its purpose is to offer the Church's supportive ministry of gently accompanying the mourners in their initial adjustment, cognizant of their need to express the sorrow of bereavement and to enjoy the treasure of consolation their faith holds for them.
The Vigil for the Deceased is the principal celebration of the Christian community during the time before the funeral liturgy (or, should there be no funeral liturgy, before the rite of committal). It may take the traditional form of a liturgy of the Word or of some form of the Office for the Dead. The latter also introduces the community to the psalms, particularly the lament psalms, which effectively permit the bereaved to own the reality of grief in the context of faith and hope.
Custom and pastoral need determine where the vigil takes place. For bereaved confined to their homes or other residences, celebrating the vigil there may be preferred; for others, the vigil at the parish church (where the body might "be waked" until the Funeral Liturgy) will be the best solution. Finally, the funeral home, where the body has been prepared and laid out for visitation and last respects, offers a convenient, familiar location.
The vigil for a deceased child differs slightly from the vigil for adults. There is greater flexibility to adapt the rite to suit the occasion, with more appropriate texts, specifically adapted to the needs of the family suffering such a tragic loss. The Church commends the child to the love of God the author of life, and prays for the consolation of the immediate family.
The OCF restores the vigil as an integral part of the Catholic funeral, and the models proposed are familiar to today's faithful. The Church gathers to share the pain and suffering of the family by allowing the Word of God to transform their grief and to pledge support for them in the times ahead.
Besides the Vigil for the Deceased and the devotional prayer of parish groups (such as the traditional Rosary) during the wake, there are other critical times in the period soon after death when the Church wishes to pray with the family and close friends of the deceased. The OCF provides for this opportunity by including Related Rites and Prayers as models of liturgical pastoral care to be adapted according to the circumstances of time, place and culture. These moments include prayers after death, gathering in the presence of the body, and the transfer of the body to the church or place of committal. They are times when the intimate family and friends of the deceased ordinarily begin to confront the reality of death and loss and may start to feel grief and pain deeply. At such moments the OCF recognizes the need for paschal faith and the consolation of Christian hope as well as the support of the entire community embodied in the presence of those who gather.
The Funeral Liturgy. As Catholic leave-taking, the principal funeral rite in the church stands in direct continuity with the vigil and related rites during the time following death and presumes movement to final closure at committal. With its unique prelude (Reception of the Body) and postlude (Final Commendation and Farewell) the Funeral Mass is the principal Catholic funeral event: Eucharist, at one with Jesus dead and risen, toward which all has pointed, and from which closure and a new relationship with the deceased follows. The symbols surrounding the deceased are reminders of a living faith that cannot be quenched by death. Sprinkling with holy water, placing of the pall, lighting of the Easter candle are all signs of baptism. They mark the rite of passage not from but into the land of the living.
Models for Funeral Liturgy for both adults and children follow traditional patterns while still incorporating options for celebrating the Rite of Reception earlier at the Vigil liturgy as well as celebrating the Final Commendation later at the place of committal. Two forms accommodate pastoral circumstances: "Funeral Liturgy" (including a funeral Mass) and "Funeral Liturgy outside Mass," with all elements of the former except the Eucharist. In all circumstances, a funeral Mass is preferred, and the OCF invites all to celebrate Mass soon in association with the death, whatever the circumstances of the funeral may have been. For the Eucharist is the sacrament that connects the mystery of the death and resurrection of the Lord to the death of this Christian.
The Final Commendation is very simple: an invitation to prayer, silence, signs and song of farewell, and prayer of commendation. Yet its explicit commendation of the deceased into God's hands at this closing moment of the Funeral Liturgy profoundly professes Christian belief that the living God, not the destruction of death, has the last word for this person of faith.
The Rite of Committal and Beyond. Nowhere do the paschal faith of Christians and the cross of human mortality meet more explicitly than beside an open grave or other final resting place. It is the authentic tradition of the Church to be present there. The liturgy of committal thus expresses the consolation of faith that gives meaning to this seemingly most meaningless experience of human loss and promises the continued presence of the Church.
What happens at the cemetery is a natural continuation of the funeral liturgy at church. The church complex and the cemetery form a liturgical unity, even when they are separated by time or distance. Formerly a short procession with the corpse from the church to the place of disposition—together with the prayers, psalms and rituals of committal—functioned primarily to conclude the rites of leave-taking. Today the procession with the body from the church is the same procession that enters the cemetery and proceeds to the grave or mausoleum. In this procession to the place of committal the OCF has restored the spirit of the classic Christian funeral. It is not distance but the movement of the Church with the deceased (ire ad Christum ) as liturgical action that creates a "funeral" procession.
Rites of committal themselves follow the familiar pattern of spoken word and acted sign: gathering (preferably at the site of interment or preservation of cremated remains), short Scripture verses, prayer and, where pastorally appropriate, lowering the coffin into the grave or placing the cremation container in its resting place. The OCF affirms, "Through this act (of committal) the community of faith proclaims that the grave or place of interment, once a sign of futility and despair, has been transformed by means of Christ's death and resurrection into a sign of hope and promise" (209).
The liturgy now points beyond the funeral and professes the commitment of the assembled Church to walk with the bereaved on the long, often painful process of healing. In short, committal rites serve to bring the funeral liturgy to closure and open the official time of mourning.
Bibliography: national conference of catholic bishops, Order of Christian Funerals, 1989, including Appendix on Cremation. Available from three publishers: Catholic Book Publishing Co., The Liturgical Press, and Liturgical Training Publications. v. k. owusu, The Roman Funeral Liturgy: History, Celebration, and Theology (Nettetetal 1993). f. s. paxton, Christianizing Death: The Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Medieval Europe (Ithaca, NY 1996). g. rowell, The Liturgy of Christian Burial (London 1977). a. c. rush, Death and Burial in Christian Antiquity (Washington, DC 1941). r. h. rutherford, The Death of a Christian. The Order of Christian Funerals (Collegeville, MN 1990). d. sicard, La liturgie de la mort dans l'église latine des origins à la réforme carolingienne (Münster 1978). j. m. c. toynbee, Death and Burial in the Roman World (London 1971). f. van der meer and c. mohrmann, Atlas of the Early Christian World (London 1966).
[r. rutherford]
Funeral rites
On the importance of being buried/cremated in particular places see KAŚI; KARBALĀʾ; MASHHAD. See also DEATH; CREMATION; RITES OF PASSAGE.
Judaism
In biblical times, the dead were buried preferably near their family graves—hence the expression, ‘slept with his fathers’. Traditionally, men are buried wrapped in their tallit, and coffins were not used until the Middle Ages. Different communities observe different burial practices, but normally the coffin is escorted to the grave and Kaddish is recited. Burial in the land of Israel is a desideratum, but failing that, earth from Israel should be placed on the head or under the body. Among Reform Jews, embalming and cremation are permitted.Christian
Christian respect for the body, and expectation of its resurrection, derive from the resurrection of Christ. Cremation was opposed and eventually became exceptional.Opposition to cremation began to erode at the end of the 19th cent., and is now common; the prohibition against it among Roman Catholics was lifted in 1963, and is now allowed provided it is not done for reasons contrary to the Christian faith.
Islam
Jināza/janāza refers to the stretcher and to the corpse on it, and thus to the funeral itself. The Qurʾān gives no detail, but much description occurs in ḥadīth, and fiqh is extremely detailed in its prescription. Generally speaking, burials should be carried out as speedily as possible. As soon as a Muslim is dead, he is laid on the stretcher with the head facing the qibla. The ghusl then takes place, and the body is covered in a shroud or shrouds (the number is disputed). Ṣalāt is then said over the dead person, and if possible there should be recitation of the Qurʾān, or at least of sūra 6. Mourning is restricted, because it disturbs the dead—though in practice lamentation (niyaha) occurs. Forty days later, a family commemoration is held (al-Arbaʿayn, ‘the Forty’).Hinduism
see ANTYEṢṬĪ.Buddhism
Disposal of the body is preferably by cremation. An important feature is the interaction between officiants (e.g. bhikṣus) and family, with gifts and transfer of puṇya. The leave-taking and rituals may take place over several days (e.g., six in Sri Lanka). Observances follow on the completion of three, and of six months, and sometimes at the anniversary.Sikhism
When a Sikh dies prayers (especially sukhmāni sāhib) are said for the deceased. The body, washed and dressed and wearing the five Ks, is cremated. During cremation Kīrtan Sohilā (the bedtime prayer) is recited. At home or in the gurdwārā verses about death are read from the Ādi Granth and the service concludes with Ardās, a hukam, and kaṛāh praśād. Sikhs are to accept death as God's will and as a stage in the progress to him. Elaborate displays of mourning or of grief are therefore discouraged.Chinese
Most dead exist in perpetuity in the rituals of the living family. Usually the dead gain immortality of memory in the family unit, periodic offerings, and possible assistance of the ‘soul’ (in Buddhist judgement); the family gains kinship cohesion by filial respect and blessings by the rites. Traditionally, the dead are buried with ming chi (spirit articles), a sustenance of some kind such as the urns and human sacrifices of the archaeological sites, or the burning of modern paper items of money and necessities. Thereafter, they are periodically offered incense and food in the family or hall shrines. The grave is carefully chosen according to the yin and yang ‘geomantic’ influences of feng shui, and the body is often buried in a coffin, later disinterred, the bones put in a pot in the open air, and finally buried in the pot. These rites and relationships vary considerably by location and historical period.funerals
Most funerals in Britain before the 19th cent. followed rituals prescribed by Christian churches and varied according to the social standing of the deceased. Before the Reformation, when Britain formed part of catholic Christendom, the funeral included a requiem mass. When a wealthy person died, the funeral ceremonies followed the terms of the will. Often money was left to pay for special clothes for mourners and for distributions of food, drink, clothing, and even money to the poor of the locality, so that the departed soul might benefit from the prayers of those who received charity. Wills often included arrangements for trustees to take income from property in order to build a chantry chapel and to make charitable gifts such as almshouses, schools, church buildings, and even bridges to the community. Priests received a fee to celebrate a memorial mass in the chantry and further alms were given to those who attended the service.
After the Reformation many wealthy protestants continued earlier traditions by making bequests to support good works such as almshouses and schools. Some left money to buy funeral clothes for mourners, especially servants, although some puritans regarded special clothing as inappropriate.
Before and after the Reformation the families of the deceased commemorated them by erecting tombs bearing brasses or sculptures or placed elaborate gravestones in churchyards. Large numbers of such memorials survive.
State funerals for sovereigns were arranged by the earl marshal. Outstanding statesmen and military commanders were sometimes honoured by a state funeral. For less exalted people funerals were arranged according to local and family traditions. Many people turned to an undertaker, or funeral director, although these terms were not commonly used until the later 19th cent. In most towns and villages a clergyman conducted the religious service including the burial of the body. The sexton had the task of digging the grave in the churchyard. From 1667 until 1814 the law required that bodies should be buried in a woollen shroud. However, fashion and greater affluence made coffins increasingly popular. In the case of pauper deaths, the Poor Law authority paid for a simple funeral.
The accuracy of the records of those buried in the churchyard depended on the diligence of the parish clerk in keeping the parish register and the burial of those with unorthodox religious or social views often went unrecorded. The registration of deaths became a legal obligation only in 1837.
During the 19th cent. many nonconformists held funerals in their own places of worship and, rather than pay fees to be buried in the parish churchyard, established their own burial grounds. Concurrently, many growing towns with overcrowded churchyards took advantage of the Act of 1853 which permitted ratepayers to elect a board with powers to buy land for a cemetery. Land in these burial grounds was divided according to denomination and plots could be purchased for a fixed period or in perpetuity. The costs of funerals were such that poorer people often took out special insurance to meet the bills and saved so that mourners could have an appropriate ‘wake’. One of the original provisions of the ‘welfare state’ established in the 1940s was a burial grant to help meet the cost of a funeral.
General interest in the practice of disposing of the dead by cremation, which was already established amongst groups such as gypsies who believed that the dead and their worldly goods should be burned, grew in the 19th cent. Cremation became legal in 1885 and funerals took place in crematoria which were built by local authorities. Funerals involving cremation of the deceased became more frequent, increasingly without a religious service, during the 20th cent. Since the First World War, there has also been a decline in the elaborate rituals of mourning. With the exception of state funerals, most modern funerals do not involve special clothing or arrangements. Regardless of social standing, mourning has become much more private and the expression of grief more personal.
Ian John Ernest Keil