A Burial at Ornans, Gustave Courbet

"Of late years Catholics in some places have begun to copy the pagan custom of decorating the dead. Flower wagons seem to form a necessary part of most funerals. The non-Catholic has no Mass, and Purgatory is a place unknown to him. He may mean to express his sympathy and sorrow in the flower he places on the coffin of the dead. It may speak for him the last farewell of a loving heart to a cherished friend.

But flowers are not for the dead, they take away the thought of death. The sacredness of that solemn moment is lost amid the fragrance of flowers. The casket hides an awful mystery. "Thou shalt die the death." The deceased friend has paid his share of Adam's debt, the living must be reminded of the debt that is still unpaid - their own. Gay flowers and handsome wreaths disturb the majesty of the thought.

The burial of our dead is a religious ceremony; not a vain and worldly pageant. The rubrics of the Church forbid flowers on the altar at funeral Masses; the altar is draped in mourning; the priest wears black vestments; all in keeping with the great and solemn mystery of death. Many dioceses have strict rulings forbidding flowers in Church at funerals.

What comfort will it be to you, kind reader, to have flowers lavished on your remains? Your poor soul will be craving in the cleansing fires of Purgatory, not for flowers, but for prayers, for the Precious Blood in the Holy Sacrifice of the mass! Source: Annals of St. Joseph Nov. 1917, Vol XXIX No. 9 Norbertine Fathers page 141

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