It was about my second or third week here at St. Anthony's back in the summer of '10 when I came into possession of a small wood box. I was still getting my sea legs a bit, meeting people, getting use to the different personalities and learning the routine. As most parish priests will tell you, the word routine takes on a very elastic meaning in parishes, as I was reminded of this particular day.
It was a Saturday morning, and we had a funeral. One of the other priests was assigned to it, so I was in my office trying to deal with the mess of mail piling up on my desk. Karen, one of our organists, came in and told me there was a man in church in a wheelchair who wanted to speak to me. He spoke Spanish, so she was clueless as to what he wanted. There, in the church, was indeed a man in one of those motorized scooters, around his neck was an ID with a picture of him in a Roman collar, at his feet, just behind the steering column of the scooter, rested the mysterious box I mentioned before. It was a little higher than a foot tall, and maybe half a foot or so deep. I could make out an inlaid cross on top made from a slightly lighter shade of wood. The man explained that he was non-denominational minister (I inspected his badge and it said he was a prison chaplain), and the landlord in a building near his church was going through an abandoned apartment and found this box. It was the cremains of a dead relative of whoever had abandoned the flat. The former tenants had been gone for almost a year, and the landlord was ready to rent the apartment again. There was no forwarding address, no way of getting these cremains to their rightful owner. He asked if I would take possession of the box.
I resisted. What was I going to do with them? It's not like I could bury them on the property. What if the family came back looking for them? I didn't want the responsibility. The minister told me that he was going to bring them down ' the Shore (yes, that Shore) and scatter them in the ocean, but he couldn't drive anymore. If I didn't take them all the landlord was going to do was throw them into the dumpster. Protestants may not believe in Catholic guilt, but they sure know how to use it to their advantage. Remembering that burring the dead is a corporal act of mercy I took possession of the box.
For about two weeks I had the blessed thing on a filing cabinet behind my desk, and when people asked me what it was I said it was a jewelry box. Finally I got hold of one of our trusted funeral directors, who came over to see what was going on. I told him the story about the minister and the scooter and all that. He looked at me with a serious look. "Father, this isn't good. You can get into a lot of trouble over this. I don't mean any disrespect, but the State of New Jersey is a buster when it comes to these things. But I know what to do." He took the box back to his place hoping to find a slip inside with the vital information. In the box were the "Ashes" alright, but no paper. I put ashes in quotes because, as it was explained to me, there are no ashes left after a cremation, just bone. But I'll get to that later. The bottom line is; all's well that ended well; my funeral director got in touch with a cemetery, I wrote a letter explaining the situation and they are holding the cremains until they are either claimed, or after a suitable period will be interred. All legal like and as by the book as we could muster considering the circumstances. And when it was all over I was advised that "the next time some guy on a scooter wants to give you a funny looking box, I don't mean any disrespect, Father, but for the love of Jiminy, just say, 'NO.'"
I have never been a fan of cremation, but now I have more than feelings to go by. A person after they die deserves a resting place, and the living deserve the opportunity to heal and move on. Forget the one they love? Of course not. But the body has a dignity, even in death, and should be treated with respect. It was a temple of the Holy Spirit and is destined for the Resurrection. But for now, until that great reconciliation it should have it's resting place. This story, while an extreme example, shows the dangers of cremating and not burring the cremains or putting them in a mausoleum. But for families who choose to keep the urn, who then put it in a prominent place in the house, a morbid fixation can develop. They can have a hard time passing through the stages of grief. I've heard of people who will actually sit on their couch and begin to curse at the urn, angry at the person for dying. These feelings are not so uncommon, but imagine if you had the reminder of your loss in front of your face everyday, if you were actually living at the grave side?
But it is not the emotional issues that trouble me so much as what the body goes through during cremation. My friend the funeral director gave me a rather antiseptic description of things, but my friend the grave digger took things to another level.
Mike, and for the sake of privacy we'll call him that, isn't simply a grave digger. His family owns a large national firm that landscapes cemeteries as well as digging graves. He also teaches in our religious ed program. We had our Confirmation retreat this past Saturday and he helped out. "I won't be in for class tomorrow, Father, we have sort of a big job." "On a Sunday?", I asked. "Well, it's a pretty big job over in Westfield; a singer who died." Yes, that singer. "The funeral is still going on, you mean they're waiting until tomorrow to bury her?" Mike laughed and said, "Now, that's top secret Father. Not that it matters; with all the security and the fences we've put up, you can't get anywhere near the place."
We got into a conversation about how more people are not having a funeral, or are opting for cremation; some out of monetary concerns, others because they simply don't see the importance of it. "I know the Church allows cremation, but I still don't feel right about it." I said. Mike looked me in the eye and said, "I would never do that to a loved one. The violence that is inflicted on the body is tremendous." He compared it to bodies being lynched and burnt. "But the flesh vaporizes, and you're left with bones, no?," I asked. He looked at me sheepishly, like an adult who doesn't want to break it to his kid that there's no Santa Klaus. "Father, all sorts of stuff goes up that chimney, charred flesh..." He hesitated, obviously leaving out details to keep me from getting nauseous. "Then," he continued, "you're left with bones, scull fragments, and other stuff," (he again wouldn't elaborate on what "other stuff" meant). We put that into a grinder, then into a blender and you're left with bone chips, basically. Burial is much more dignified, it respects the body."
The Church for many centuries prohibited cremation because it was seen as a denial of the Resurrection. She now permits it, but I have a feeling She has done so for the same reason Moses permitted divorce; not because it was the right thing but for the hardness of the people's hearts. While people may not have hard hearts, or be explicitly denying the bodily resurrection, I really do believe that they are being lured in by a romantic notion of cremation that doesn't take into account the "violence," as Mike put it, and gruesomeness of the procedure. I wonder if we haven't lost sight of the holiness of the body. But I'm not surprised so much; we have less and less respect for living bodies today, it's no wonder we're loosing respect for the dead as well.
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