Why I Remain Catholic: the Funerals

Many Catholics are writing about "Why I Remain Catholic." Besides the good answers given elsewhere, here is one reason of mine: for the funerals. I came into the Church in the Easter Vigil of 2012. A year or so ago I attended a funeral for a man in the parish whom I did not know, but whose wife I knew. I had never seen a Catholic funeral and did not know what to expect. So what follows are my impressions of what I saw, being a Catholic but still a very new one and one who did not grow up in an environment with any Catholicism near it. This was a funeral Mass, not a Requiem Mass. The casket was brought to the front of the church, to rest at the base of the lit Baptismal/Paschal candle. What a symbol, to remind us of the man's baptism and ours, and of the Resurrection. The vestments in this case were white, also a reminder of the Resurrection, and instead of a big spray of flowers made by a florist, the casket had a pall, a drape of the same material as the priest's vestments. I don't think I had ever seen a drape that wasn't a flag. I learned that some funerals are done with violet or even black vestments, which is not cheery, but does have great significance. This funeral was radiant with hope, but even if this were a more old school funeral with black vestments and the reading of the Dies Irae, either way, one of the most striking things to me, and the more striking the more I think about it... (Read the rest...)