Cremation and the Catholic Holy Mass – Funeral Facts with Deacon Marc
Below is a transcript the the video:
Hello and welcome to this week’s Funeral Facts with Deacon Mark.
We’ve been doing a series on cremation, and we talked about is cremation permitted in the Catholic Church. We talked about do’s and don’ts of cremation. Today we’re going to address our final question and that is, can you have a funeral mass if you’re cremated?
The basic answer to that is yes. But let’s go into a couple details of it.
First of all, if you’re going to be cremated it is preferred that the body be present for the mass. So, the idea being you have the vigil, you have the mass, then you have the cremation and then you place the individual into a cemetery.
So that is the preferred way. There’s a lot of spiritual and psychological benefits to it. There’s a benefit to your family, seeing the body there, being present there, seeing the body at the mass, receiving communion and all that with the body presence. So that is the preferred, it is permitted to have the cremated remains present.
So, you can have the cremated remains present instead of the body, but it’s preferred to have the body. Now People ask, well, why would you not have the body?
Having the body present is a little bit more expensive because there’s transporting the body, caring for the body. You need a casket, all those different types of things. So, the preferred is the body present but it is permitted to have the cremated remains there.
If the cremated remains are present the mass and the committal are very similar except for a few minor things that a lot of people wouldn’t even notice. The biggest one that people probably would notice is there’s no pall placed onto the cremated remains we place a pall on the casket reminding us of the white garment we receive at the baptism and that is connected to dying and rising with Christ and so we put the pall on the casket to remind us of our baptism and the connection to the baptism. If the cremated remains are there, we don’t do anything as far as putting the pall on there and all that. So that’s the biggest piece.
The piece that most people wouldn’t notice is there’s some little minor changes in the prayers that are said. But other than that, it is a funeral mass as everything else would be.
And so, we’re looking at yes you can have a funeral mass if you’re cremated preferably with the body present but if not still have that mass because we want you to have graces of that mass as you go on your journey to the heavenly father.
This is Funeral Facts with Deacon Mark.
Have a great week.
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A Ministry of the Archdiocese of Denver
