"In a better place now" - what did Catholics traditionally say?

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I am one of those people who believes everyone who dies is either “in a better place” or in “no place at all” (which is preferable to living in agony through an illness while waiting to be overcome by death, so…still “a better place”)

It is a happy thought for me, even in the worst of circumstances. It isn’t only a happy thought, it is what I truly believe.

I don’t ever express that belief to anyone while they are suffering the loss of a loved one, unless they specifically ask me what I believe. There are too many other things one can say to bring comfort, which have nothing to do with beliefs of the afterlife.
 
I agree with you, but anyone who is not a faithful Catholic would take great umbrage with the suggestion that their loved one was not “good enough” to get into heaven immediately — “you Catholics and your purgatory, that is nowhere in the Bible, my Aunt Hortense was the best person who ever lived, the nerve of you to make such a remark!”.
TheLittleLady said:
I’ve seen many funeral memorial cards that specifically ask people to pray for the soul that they may pass quickly through purgatory etc.
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I’m assuming that these are prayer cards for Catholics only. There seems to be some kind of atavistic urge in the human person to “do something” for the deceased, but unless someone believes in purgatory or some kind of transitional state (the “toll booths” concept that some Orthodox hold), prayer for the repose of someone else’s soul is useless. They’re either in heaven and no prayer is needed, or they’re in hell and no prayer will do any good. So instead they say “our prayers go out to the family” or something similar. You will occasionally hear someone slip and say “and we pray for X (who has died)” — what exactly what are they praying for? And then there is the massive funeral flower industry.
JMMJ said:
I am one of those people who believes everyone who dies is either “in a better place” or in “no place at all” (which is preferable to living in agony through an illness while waiting to be overcome by death, so…still “a better place”)

It is a happy thought for me, even in the worst of circumstances. It isn’t only a happy thought, it is what I truly believe.

I don’t ever express that belief to anyone while they are suffering the loss of a loved one, unless they specifically ask me what I believe. There are too many other things one can say to bring comfort, which have nothing to do with beliefs of the afterlife.
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I take it you are not a believing Catholic. No condemnation, just stating the fact.

Actually, on a practical level, unless I know that someone is a fellow believing Catholic, orthodox in the Faith, I avoid commenting on the afterlife if I possibly can, when someone has suffered a loss — I do not want to be called upon to affirm that they are in heaven, and that is what is expected. On this much, you and I could agree. I try to find something nice I can say about their life, a nice story or anecdote.
 
Valid point op.

Funerals are for people
So those words are used to comfort them

A priest cant say ~~ well I hope this person avoids hell…
Katie 🦋
 
Katie777 said:
Valid point op.

Funerals are for people
So those words are used to comfort them

A priest cant say ~~ well I hope this person avoids hell…
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No, they sure can’t. That dog wouldn’t hunt, in today’s “shining happy people” society.

I think the traditional Latin Requiem Mass covers it all. Hope for salvation and holy fear of God’s wrath and just punishments exist in equal measures. Not a running commentary on the state of the person’s soul. As I said above, that’s what I’ve requested when my time is up here on this earth. It’s in my will.

http://www.requiemsurvey.org/latintext.php
 
This is a good question. And very timely in my situation as someone who has lost both parents in the last three years. I got tired of people trying to reassure me by saying, “he/she is in a better place now”. Then they would expect me to wipe a tear, sigh, look upward, and say, “yes, yes, I know he/she is.”

It’s a very safe, neutral thing to say which covers a lot of common beliefs people have. And, if you do not know what someone believes, it is better than saying, “well, hopefully they at least made it to Purgatory…” I would be willing to bet that saying would not exist if the heresy of Protestantism did not exist.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
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Katie777:
Valid point op.

Funerals are for people
So those words are used to comfort them

A priest cant say ~~ well I hope this person avoids hell…
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No, they sure can’t. That dog wouldn’t hunt, in today’s “shining happy people” society.

I think the traditional Latin Requiem Mass covers it all. Hope for salvation and holy fear of God’s wrath and just punishments exist in equal measures. Not a running commentary on the state of the person’s soul. As I said above, that’s what I’ve requested when my time is up here on this earth. It’s in my will.

Requiemsurvey.org
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I read your link. There is nothing but hope of salvation for the departed person. The rest is directed to the still living present. Personally I’d be quite concerned if I was at a funeral Mass attributing the possibility of hell to the dearly departed rather than contemplating my own mortality and my conscience. These posts do not resonate as Catholic to me at all.
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
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HomeschoolDad:
Requiemsurvey.org
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I read your link. There is nothing but hope of salvation for the departed person. The rest is directed to the still living present. Personally I’d be quite concerned if I was at a funeral Mass attributing the possibility of hell to the dearly departed rather than contemplating my own mortality and my conscience. These posts do not resonate as Catholic to me at all.
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Well, I suppose you could read it that way. At least the Requiem Mass raises the possibility of either salvation or damnation, and it is not all unicorns and rainbows, teddy bears and arms of angels. It’s a somber, mournful service, and such visuals as black vestments and a black pall remind the faithful that there are, indeed, “four last things” — heaven, hell, death, and judgment. It’s a powerful “reality check” on the most important things in the world.
 
There was recently published a letter to the Dear Abbey column addressing this exact situation. The writer was an atheist, and so when someone said to her that her dad was “in a better place”, to her, it sounded like they were saying he was better off dead, and she found that grossly offensive. For people who don’t believe in an afterlife, or in God, I can see how what is intended to be a consoling remark can come off as meaning something entirely different.

The advice that was given to folks in general who wish to console the bereaved is to simply say, “I’m sorry for your loss”. And no more than that.
 
JanR said:
There was recently published a letter to the Dear Abbey column addressing this exact situation. The writer was an atheist, and so when someone said to her that her dad was “in a better place”, to her, it sounded like they were saying he was better off dead, and she found that grossly offensive. For people who don’t believe in an afterlife, or in God, I can see how what is intended to be a consoling remark can come off as meaning something entirely different.

The advice that was given to folks in general who wish to console the bereaved is to simply say, “I’m sorry for your loss”. And no more than that.
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Quite agreed. “They’re in a better place now” presupposes a certain theological grounding — de facto universal salvation for all except possibly the most hardened, notorious public sinners — and not everyone has that grounding. Some who make the “better place” observation are also expecting you to join in with them and ratify what they are saying — the unspoken assumption is “they’re in heaven now, and you will affirm that along with me, now, won’t you?”. It is better to change the focus to how the life of the departed affected others in a good way, how unfortunate the loss is, and how much they will be missed. Affirmations such as this are inoffensive to any religious standpoint — or none.
 
A funeral mass is just as much to aid the deceased than the people attending.

In general, the Church has really gone off base with regards to funeral masses and it’s pop psychology approach. The family is grieving, the Church us talking about “celebrating life”,where’s the solidarity?. The family is in black, the priest wears white: where’s the solidarity? You can’t help people by saying happy and peppy things like “celebrating their life” and wearing white. You help them by mourning with them, joining with them.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
I suppose we could say that, whether they are in heaven, purgatory, or (God forbid) hell, they are indeed “in a better place”… because, after all, they see God for what He truly is, and they can’t sin anymore.
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This is somewhat off-topic from what you are talking about, but hell is perpetual and ongoing sinning, by definition of the state of hell. Being in hell and no longer sinning are absolutely contradictory.
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
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HomeschoolDad:
I suppose we could say that, whether they are in heaven, purgatory, or (God forbid) hell, they are indeed “in a better place”… because, after all, they see God for what He truly is, and they can’t sin anymore.
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This is somewhat off-topic from what you are talking about, but hell is perpetual and ongoing sinning, by definition of the state of hell . Being in hell and no longer sinning are absolutely contradictory.
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My understanding is that your will is frozen at the time of death, and you can never grow more or less virtuous. I suppose you could say that a soul in hell is “flash-frozen” in a state of sin for all eternity, the state of sin they died in, but can you commit, for lack of a better way to put it, “new sins”? I tend to think not, but I could be wrong. Heaven and hell are a state of “eternal now”, and time as we know it does not exist and does not pass.

A more precise explanation is beyond my pay grade, and possibly even the one I have given is beyond it. We know that hell is total separation from God and that it never ends. Heaven is total union with God and it never ends either.
 
“Celebrating life” indeed has no place in a Catholic funeral, but the Scriptures command us to comfort one another with the promise of the Resurrection of the Dead (1 Thes 4:13-18). Because Christ is risen from the dead, all who die in Christ shall also rise in glory with Him on the Last Day, even if they must endure Purgatory until then (for some, but not all, of the souls in Purgatory will remain there until the Resurrection, though they are all assured of eternity in Heaven). The white pall and vestments symbolize our hope of the Resurrection; they do not give offense to our loss. Indeed, we should all strive to live such lives that our funerals be as our weddings, and the day of our burial like the day of our baptism.
 
The damned souls do not demerit and thereby incur further torment, but they do adamantly hate God and envy the saints.
 
mythbuster1 said:
The damned souls do not demerit and thereby incur further torment, but they do adamantly hate God and envy the saints.
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I find it useful to think of hell this way: quite aside from the sensible torments and suffering, try to imagine the thing in your life that you wanted more than anything else you’ve ever wanted, but something happens, something that was largely your own fault, and you lose forever that thing that you wanted so badly, and can never get it back.

I will not be more specific than this, but I have had such an experience. It’s easy for me to relate the eternal loss of heaven to that.
 
I understand the theological symbolism if white at funerals. Fine, put it on a coffin. But don’t wear it as a vestment.
 
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