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Funerals usually take place in the small cemetery chapel in Medjugorje.

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What does the catechism of the Catholic Church tell us about the celebration of funerals?

 

“Christian funerals are a liturgical celebration of the Church. Through this, the ministry of the Church has in view in this case both to express effective communion with the deceased and to involve the community gathered for the funeral and to announce eternal life to him. "

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“1685 The different funeral rites express the Pascal character of Christian death and respond to the situations and traditions of each region, even with regard to the liturgical color (cf. SC 81). "

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“1686 The Ordo exsequiarum (OEx) of the Roman liturgy offers three types of funeral celebration, corresponding to the three places where it takes place (the house, the church, the cemetery), and according to the importance attached to it. family, local customs, culture and popular piety. "

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“1690 The farewell (" to God ") to the deceased is his" recommendation to God "by the Church. It is "the last farewell by which the Christian community greets one of its members before his body is brought to his grave" (OEx 10). Byzantine tradition expresses it by the farewell kiss to the deceased:

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By this final greeting "we sing for his departure from this life and for his separation, but also because there is a communion and a reunion. In fact, dead we are not at all separated from each other, because we are all traveling through the same path and we will find ourselves in the same place. We will never be separated, because we live for Christ, and now we are united with Christ, going towards him ... we will all be together in Christ "(Saint Simeon de Thessaloniki, De ordine sepulturae, 367: PG 155, 685B). "

 

Source: www.vatican.va