Parish buries cremated remains in cemetery

By ADAM CORMIER |Special to The CFP

LEOMINSTER – The cremated remains of six people were committed to the earth on All Souls’ Day during a Mass at St. Cecilia’s Cemetery.
Msgr. James P. Moroney, pastor, and Father Paul Shaughnessy, S.J., associate, were joined by about 40 parishioners of St. Cecilia Parish in asking God to forgive their sins and lead them home to heaven.
The rites began with a Mass at the cemetery altar, where each of the 51 people who had been buried from St. Cecilia’s during the past year were prayed for by name. During his homily, Msgr. Moroney recalled how “we pray for all who rest in this cemetery in the sure and certain hope that the Lord will raise them from the dead on the day of the last judgement.”
He urged all present to pray for their beloved deceased, especially in the offering of the Mass, “the perfect sacrifice of the judge of the living and the dead, whose paschal dying and rising ‘takes away the sins of the world.’”
The Mass concluded with a procession to the single grave where the cremated remains were interred. The remains came from families responding to the pastor’s urging that all cremated remains should be buried as a sign of our hope in the coming of the Lord Jesus on the last day.
In a September parish bulletin, Msgr. Moroney wrote that while “Catholics are permitted to have their bodies cremated … all cremated remains should be committed to the earth as a sign of our belief that the Lord will raise us up on the last day.”
He continued by explaining that “the burial of a body or cremated remains in the cemetery is, therefore, an expression of our belief that we wait in joyful hope for the return of the Lord Jesus and the Resurrection of everyone from the dead.” Quoting the Order of Christian Funerals, he noted that, for this reason, “the practice of scattering cremated remains on the sea, from the air, or on the ground, or keeping cremated remains in the home of a relative or friend of the deceased are not the reverent disposition that the Church requires.” (Order of Christian Funerals, no. 417)
On behalf of St. Cecilia Cemetery, Msgr. Moroney then offered that anyone with the cremated remains of a loved one at home who would like to have them buried could present them for burial in a common burial vault on All Souls’ Day, at no cost.
The one-grave lot will be opened each All Souls’ Day for the cost-free interment of any cremated remains and will be marked by a flat marker bearing the image of St. Cecilia and reading: “Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon them.”