Connection: Baptism and Christian Burial

Image: Station 15: Resurrection of Jesus, photographer Ppvanderlee, 22 February 2012, PD, Wikimedia Commons

Less than a week ago we participated in the Funeral Mass for Christian Burial for one of my husband’s younger brothers. The priest met the casket at the back of the church and enveloped it in incense as his prayers rose to God. The casket was draped in white, an echo of this man’s baptism.

The Church links Baptism and death because of our life in Christ. Just this last Sunday we celebrated the Baptism of Christ and of course, when we think of the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, we naturally think of how this ministry ended three years later with His death.

Just hours before Marc died, I had a startling experience as I connected spirit to spirit with him, even though he was in a deep, cancer induced coma.

Cancer was in the fluid of his brain as he lay in bed with his eyes shut, mouth open, with laboured breathing.

When no one else was in the room, I decided to pray aloud and call Marc’s spirit to attention, to rise up to centre stage. I invited him to turn to God, even though his mind was unconscious.

I soaked Marc with words of love,

Reminding him of the mercy of God.

I said-

No more fear,

No more terror,

You are simply slipping through the veil

Which separates life and death.

God sees you with all your faults yet loves you.

Your biggest agony is you are leaving your family,

Yet I say to you

You will be their biggest champion and guardian

As you pray and intercede for them on the other side.

When I opened my eyes, Marc was staring right at me, wide awake,

eyeball to eyeball with tears rolling down his face!

It was unnerving, yet possible only because Jesus died and rose again. We are part of the communion of saints whether we are alive or dead.

copyright: Melanie Jean Juneau, 2015

Image:  Station 15: Resurrection of Jesus, photographer Ppvanderlee, 22 February 2012, PD,  Wikimedia Commons