When a Jew would die, the Ninevites would throw their bodies over the wall, outside into the fields, right? What do they call it? Wilderness? Forest? Not forest.
Ay caramba. Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents. So someone recently asked me this question. They said, why is it that we as human beings, but specifically as Catholic Christians, why do we visit cemeteries? Like, why would you go to someone's grave because they said, well, they're not really there, so why would you go there?
It's just their body. And I thought, oh my gosh, this is such a great question on so many levels. It opens up an opportunity to talk about a bunch of different things.
The first thing is, what is a human being? And we We've talked about this before on these videos when we talk about theology of the body. And one of the core realities is what a human being is, what a human person is, is a body and soul composite, right?
A human being is a body, soul together. A human person is the body and soul united. So you have divine persons like the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. That's just their immaterial spirit, essentially.
You have angelic persons, which also don't have bodies. but human persons, what we are as human beings, is our body and our soul together. And so in death, what is death?
Death is the separation of the body and the soul. So a person in death without their body back, which will come at the resurrection of the dead, they're not fully them, quote unquote, them there either. Like if you were to say, well, their body, that's not really them.
Like you're right. But their soul, just alone, their soul is also kind of sort of... not quote-unquote really them.
Does that make sense? Because what a human person is, is a body and soul together. You are your body.
You are your soul. What you are as a human person, as a human being, is body and soul together. So in some ways you could say that their body is just as much them as their soul is. Now obviously the soul is immaterial and therefore the soul is immortal.
It endures into infinity, whereas the body corrupts and decays. But there is a sense in which that body is just as much them as their soul is, in a certain sense, right? So one of the reasons why we would go visit a graveyard, go visit someone's grave, is because there's this tangible connection to that person. This is where their body was laid to rest. Now, as Catholics, we also have these things called the corporal works of mercy.
So the corporal works of mercy, corpus means like, you know, so corporal comes from corpus. Corpus refers to the body. So in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 25, Jesus says things like, I was naked and you clothed me.
I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty. You gave me to drink. I was in prison and you visited me.
I was in the hospitals. Basically, there are six of them. And then in the Middle Ages, the church came up with and said, well, actually, another corporal works of mercy, another work of mercy one does to care for someone else's body is the burying of the dead. Essentially, the church has kind of elevated this corporal work of mercy of burying the dead to that level of caring for someone else's body. In fact, this isn't a new invention.
It's not even new to Christianity. Even in the book of Tobit, it talks about one of Tobit's himself acts of virtue is burying the dead. In fact, it would say that when the Ninevites, he was living in Assyria at the time, he was exiled right from the northern kingdom of Israel.
When he was outside Nineveh, the Ninevites would take the bodies of the Jews and just throw them into a field, throw them into the countryside. And Tobit would go and gather their bodies and lay them to rest. He would bury the dead.
And it was this act of virtue. In fact, Tobit almost lost his life a couple times because it was so important to him to take care of his fellow Jews. Those people that who were related to him through the covenant. There's a rabbi I heard about, or a Jewish author who was quoting some rabbis, who had said, like the rabbis would say that when it comes to those corporal works of mercy, not the ones Jesus mentions, but all the works of mercy, of mercy that person could do to another person. The mitzvah, you've got the commandments, right?
Out of all of them, burying the dead is the only one that you can do without anticipating any kind of repayment, right? You do it without anticipating any kind of payback. because you're taking care of someone who cannot offer you anything back. That's one of the reasons why the church has said this is one of the corporal works of mercy.
Why? Because mercy, what is mercy? Mercy is the love that we need most and we deserve least. Mercy is the kind of love that we, in so many ways, do not have the ability to pay back.
In some ways, right? So the church has seized burying the dead as a corporal work of mercy. And so we take care of the bodies and we lay them trust in holy grace. ground and that is absolutely essential that's one of the reasons why as catholic christians we do not ever ever ever scatter someone's ashes even if someone is cremated we inter those cremains in the earth or in a sacred place.
You don't put them on your mantle, put them in a locket and wear it on your neck. No, we always take the remains of the person, whether that's their body or their cremains, right? So their remains after being cremated and put that in holy ground, sacred ground. Why?
Because it is a corporal work of mercy because we're honoring the fact that, yes, human being is a body and soul together. Death is the separation of body and soul. So while their soul, God willing, is in heaven, it doesn't have to be, but hopefully they chose heaven. Their body is taken care of here on earth.
So you might say, okay, that's great. One of the corporate workers of mercies is burying the dead. We have funeral directors now. We have funeral homes. We have other people who take care of that kind of a thing of burying the dead.
What do I do? How do I exercise that corporate worker of mercy? Well, great question because I'm really glad you asked.
Yes, we have other people typically now in our 21st century world that we bring the body of our beloved person. to them and they take care of the body. They make sure the body is prepared for and then buried.
What we can do for our part is we can visit the graves of those who have gone before us. Why would you do that? It's like that question that came to me. Why would you do that?
We do it. And when we do it, we pray for them. We do it and when we do it, we intercede on their behalf.
You know, 2 Maccabees chapter 12 says, it is a good and righteous thought to pray for the dead, to intercede on behalf of the dead. And we go to the place where their body is... resting, one of the things we're doing is not only memorializing them, we're not only remembering them, we're not only like honoring them, but we're also praying for them. And that actually does something. We believe that prayer does something and we believe that prayer...
for the dead, based on 2 Maccabees chapter 12, and also other places in scripture, we believe that that actually does something. So here's my invitation for all of us. My invitation is, when someone close to you dies, recognize that burying the dead, burying them, making all the funeral arrangements, and making all the arrangements for them to be laid to rest in the ground, recognize that that's not just a task you have to do to get to, quote-unquote, get rid of or dispose of their body.
It is an act of mercy. Then, when it comes to visiting them, recognize that every time you pass a cemetery, every time you walk into a cemetery, every time you go to the grave of any individual, it doesn't matter who they are, how long they've been dead, you have the opportunity to pray for them. Last thing here quick.
There's a church in Rome. I mentioned it in a Sunday homily a couple weeks ago called the Bone Church and this church is called the Bone Church because the walls are essentially made of bones. The altars are made of bones. like every, there's entire, almost entire skeletons of people in this bone church.
Now, you say, wait a second, I thought you said they had, bodies had to be interred, bodies had to be in sacred place. Okay, I'll tell you this, if your body is building a church, your body, body's in a sacred place. Just get that right now. But in this bone church, as you walk in, above the entryway to the bone church is this saying written that you can, everyone passing underneath this arch can read. And it says, what you are now, we once were.
What we are now, you will be. That when you go to that grave, go to that cemetery, you can think the exact same thing. That that person, that body that's laid to rest in the earth, could simply say, What you are now, I once was. What I am now, you will be.
It is a good thing. It is a good and righteous and holy thing to pray for the dead. So pray for the dead and it is powerful to be in their presence, in the presence of a body in a cemetery, in a grave site, and intercede on their behalf.
Anyways, that's what I got for you today. From all of us here at Ascension Presents, my name is Father Mike. God bless.
Where they are now, one day I will be. And what they are now, shoot. Stop.