Cremation

[maryjk]

Tell the truth I heartily dislike the funeral industry and it’s euphamisms. I dislike how undertakers urge survivors to spend every last penny to put in a hole in the ground, they are like vultures chasing the almighty dollar.

They aren’t undertakers, they are morticians. And they, like most people, work for a living.

That said, the mortician I worked with when my parents died, didn’t try to get us to spend every penny we had. I am sorry you feel that much hostility toward an entire industry.

It’s a coffin, not a “casket”, a **grave **not a “space”. A body is embalmed, not “prepared”. And the results of all this embalming might last a week if lucky.

When I die not “pass away”, I don’t want to be embalmed, I don’t want to be made up, put in a coffin for people to parade by and say “how good he looks”. How good can a corpse look?

Following the Requiem I will be cremated in a cardboard box. And my ashes not “CREMAINS” will be put in a church columbarium. I have already financed this and insurance will go to my loved ones (fancy that) and not the undertakers.

Most people, when they are mourning, prefer that people don’t use words like died or ashes. You don’t, so don’t use them.

 

[Cavaradossi]

I see you are Orthodox, isn’t the proper term used in the East is “fall asleep in the Lord”?

Or better yet, ‘repose in the Lord.’

 

[GaryTaylor]

Tell the truth I heartily dislike the funeral industry and it’s euphamisms. I dislike how undertakers urge survivors to spend every last penny to put in a hole in the ground, they are like vultures chasing the almighty dollar.

It’s a coffin, not a “casket”, a grave not a “space”. A body is embalmed, not “prepared”. And the results of all this embalming might last a week if lucky.

When I die not “pass away”, I don’t want to be embalmed, I don’t want to be made up, put in a coffin for people to parade by and say “how good he looks”. How good can a corpse look?

Following the Requiem I will be cremated in a cardboard box. And my ashes not “CREMAINS” will be put in a church columbarium. I have already financed this and insurance will go to my loved ones (fancy that) and not the undertakers.

Planning ahead hey? Those wake’s leave a lasting impression don’t they.

 

[Corki]

I read something somewhere just yesterday that an Urn could be kept temporarily in the home until inturnment. I’ve lost where I read that. My family is discussing this for my Father whom we lost a couple of days ago. They would like to know what the word “temporary” refers to. Our plan is to build a small collumbarium on our property and have it blessed. Now, are home has been blessed from so many years ago. Would the land our home exists on be included in that blessing I wonder?

Condolences on the loss of your father.

I don’t know what the rule is officially but your priest should be able to help you. When one of my parents died, we had to wait for the columbarium to be ready. The cremains were in the house for several months. Our pastor told us this was alright since we had made the arrangements for inurnment so were obviously not trying to avoid reposing the cremains. It was a delay beyond our control. The funeral home also offered to keep the urn in the meantime.

 

[Corki]

Oh, this has reminded me of something. Recently at my church, a funeral mass was performed where a woman’s ashes were brought into the church and placed in the front of the church. Was it licit to have a funeral mass with the ashes of the deceased and not the body?

Yes. That’s the normal way, at least in the US. In countries where the funeral is the day after the death, it might work to have the funeral before the cremation. Here it is usually 3-5 days.

 

[archangel04]

God created us “from the dust of the earth” , so I sure god won’t have a problem gathering ashes. The church teaches that spirt and body are two separate things, the body is of the earth and will return to earth.

They may be separate but the body is still temple of the Holy Spirit. Also the body you have now is the same one you’ll have for the rest of eternity. We don’t get new bodies after the resurrection. Jesus did not get a new body after the resurrection.

 

[andrewstx]

I see you are Orthodox, isn’t the proper term used in the East is “fall asleep in the Lord”?

That is the prefered term. but it won’t make me less dead. Or repose.

 

[andrewstx]

They aren’t undertakers, they are morticians. And they, like most people, work for a living.

That said, the mortician I worked with when my parents died, didn’t try to get us to spend every penny we had. I am sorry you feel that much hostility toward an entire industry.
Most people, when they are mourning, prefer that people don’t use words like died or ashes. You don’t, so don’t use them.

That is just a continuation of the death denying euphamsims.

Undertakers prefer those words for two reasons:

1 The deny that death has actually happened and

2 they maximise profits for the undertaking industry.

I had a terrible experience when the Orthodox priest who baptised me died.

He was all made up and embalmed in his coffin dressed in his vestments, and we were asked to kiss his corpse.

I was terrified and always have been at a “typical American funeral”, and have been frightened since my Grandfathers funeral when I was only seven. America is the only nation that routinely embalms makes up and has open coffin funerals.

At least Fr. Patrick was burried in a pine box, instead of a 30.000 $ bronze “casket”.

 

[andrewstx]

Planning ahead hey? Those wake’s leave a lasting impression don’t they.

They certainly do, esp when the family gets drunk and fights over who’s paying.

 

[maryjk]

I was terrified and always have been at a “typical American funeral”, and have been frightened since my Grandfathers funeral when I was only seven. America is the only nation that routinely embalms makes up and has open coffin funerals.

At least Fr. Patrick was buried in a pine box, instead of a 30.000 $ bronze “casket”.

I attended both my mother’s and my father’s funeral last year. Neither had a $30,000 bronze casket or coffin. Even if you combined the entire cost of both funerals, it didn’t cost anywhere near $30,000.

And neither wore make-up and neither had an open casket. Mom was cremated, Dad was not. Embalming is not routine and is only done at the request of the family. A funeral home cannot embalm without your permission.

 

[andrewstx]

It just occoured to me (I have had a stroke and not too sharp), that burial of the dead has always been taught. This is a “corporate act of mercy”.

BTW the profit motive does no enter into the picture. Why not organise Catholic burial and cremation associations where all pay who desire paya reasonable ammount to be taken care of after death?

There is a secular assosciation called the Neptune Society that does just that.

I reccomend that people read THE AMERICAN WAY OF DEATH by Jessica Mitford. This book tells the history of burial and cremation.

America is the only nation where people are or were at the time of writting routinely embalmed, made up, and put on display and buried in metal coffins.

In Europe graves are leased for a period of years. In Greece bodies are buried long enough to decompose, and later they are exhumed and the bones are placed in ossuraries.

America is the only place so rich in land that graves are purchased, and considered permenent. And even here there are places so crowded that cremation has become preffered.

In San Francisco ground burial has been illegal since the 1906 earthquake and fire. Bodies there are cremated or buried in Colma. Colma is nearly completely grave yards, very few actually live there.

 

[andrewstx]

I attended both my mother’s and my father’s funeral last year. Neither had a $30,000 bronze casket or coffin. Even if you combined the entire cost of both funerals, it didn’t cost anywhere near $30,000.

And neither wore make-up and neither had an open casket. Mom was cremated, Dad was not. Embalming is not routine and is only done at the request of the family. A funeral home cannot embalm without your permission.

Good for you maryjk, I sincerely congratuale you and your choices.

My parents were a different story. My protestant mother divorced dad and married a man for his money. This man was a business man in the community, and mom felt obliged to go all out. She spent nearly 50k to put him in the ground with an exspensive bronze on granite marker. And in an exspensive private for profit cemetary. When her time came she was cremated and put in step-dads grave.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

I still think it’s obvious the the Catholic Church changed the rules about this. The Catholic Church’s practice of burial goes back to early Christian days. A strong belief in the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit, as well as the belief in the resurrection of the body, support the Church’s continued reverence for the human body. From early Christian days cremation was viewed as a pagan practice and a denial of the doctrine of the Resurrection. That’s why cremation was expressly forbidden by the Catholic Church until recent years (1997).

I imagine they did because people were getting cremated anyway, because of the cost of burial. But it seems like nothing is really written in concrete in the Catholic Church as it is often claimed. The Catholic Church really does change with the times.

 

[Corki]

That’s why cremation was expressly forbidden by the Catholic Church until recent years (1997).

It was approved earlier than that. It is mentioned in the 1983 Code of Canon law, for example.

But it seems like nothing is really written in concrete in the Catholic Church as it is often claimed. The Catholic Church really does change with the times.:shrug

You are correct. When it comes to disciplinary issues, the Church can and does change with time. That’s why the Codes are reviewed periodically. Fortunately, she does not change, as it is truthfully claimed, on matters of faith.

 

[Cavaradossi]

That is just a continuation of the death denying euphamsims.

Undertakers prefer those words for two reasons:

1 The deny that death has actually happened and

2 they maximise profits for the undertaking industry.

I had a terrible experience when the Orthodox priest who baptised me died.

He was all made up and embalmed in his coffin dressed in his vestments, and we were asked to kiss his corpse.

I was terrified and always have been at a “typical American funeral”, and have been frightened since my Grandfathers funeral when I was only seven. America is the only nation that routinely embalms makes up and has open coffin funerals.

At least Fr. Patrick was burried in a pine box, instead of a 30.000 $ bronze “casket”.

Kissing the deceased is part of all Orthodox funerals, if I am not mistaken, as is the custom of dressing clergy in their vestments. Bishops are even seated in their chairs at some point during their funerals in some traditions, though it seems that this custom is not followed in America owing to our peculiar aversion to death and dead bodies, which seems to be a uniquely American thing.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

Kissing the deceased is part of all Orthodox funerals, if I am not mistaken, as is the custom of dressing clergy in their vestments. Bishops are even seated in their chairs at some point during their funerals in some traditions, though it seems that this custom is not followed in America owing to our peculiar aversion to death and dead bodies, which seems to be a uniquely American thing.

I don’t think it always was though. Back in the 1800’s many people took pictures of their dead children and displayed them on the mantle. Here is a link:

users.telenet.be/thomasweynants/post-mortem.html

Death was more of a reality then.

Now people call the undertaker to take the body immediately after death, and have the body embalmed or cremated.

 

[andrewstx]

I have been trying to say my gampas funeral with it’s open coffin and parading by to “view grampa” traumatised me as a small boy.

That experience had turned me agianst the funeral industry for life and since burial of the dead is a corporate act of mercy, I think the funeral bussiness as a profit making industry is un needed.

 

[andrewstx]

I don’t think it always was though. Back in the 1800’s many people took pictures of their dead children and displayed them on the mantle. Here is a link:

users.telenet.be/thomasweynants/post-mortem.html

Death was more of a reality then.

Now people call the undertaker to take the body immediately after death, and have the body embalmed or cremated.[/Qoute]

They also made jewelry from the hair of the dead.

 

[maryjk]

I have been trying to say my gampas funeral with it’s open coffin and parading by to “view grampa” traumatised me as a small boy.

That experience had turned me agianst the funeral industry for life and since burial of the dead is a corporate act of mercy, I think the funeral bussiness as a profit making industry is un needed.

But the funeral industry didn’t force you to do that, your parents did.

Maybe instead of being upset with an entire industry, you should have taken it up with your parents?

( Couldn’t imagine making a 7 year old attend a grandparent’s funeral, let alone go to a viewing.)

 

[CHRISTINE77]

But the funeral industry didn’t force you to do that, your parents did.

Maybe instead of being upset with an entire industry, you should have taken it up with your parents?

( Couldn’t imagine making a 7 year old attend a grandparent’s funeral, let alone go to a viewing.)

I can’t imagine being traumatized for life because a kid saw his grandfather in a coffin either.