I tried to think deep and sacred thoughts during Adoration after the Holy Thursday Mass this past Triduum, but my mind kept wandering. Still, I had resolved to stay until 9:00 p.m., and stay until 9:00 p.m. I would. It was only in the last minute or two, however, that I had something I could call a revelation.
I was trying to think about John’s Gospel, but my thoughts slid a few days ahead, to Easter Sunday. I thought specifically of the holy women going to the tomb in the early morning to anoint Jesus’ body. Jesus, they believed, was dead, and yet they still decided to take care of him after he died. They kept Jesus in their hearts and went to where he was buried to remember and minister to him. At that moment, I could only think of my own loved ones who have passed, and what we did — or didn’t do — for them after they died.
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Since 2022, I have been in the throes of a lengthy research project to put together a cohesive family tree, including names, birth and death dates, places of birth, and places of burial. In the summer of 2023, my father and I took various road trips across New York and Pennsylvania to visit the gravesites of some of these long-dead relatives. I’d been learning about these ancestors for months, but neither of us had ever visited most of their graves. Some of the graves were quite beautiful, like that of my great-grandparents, whose grave doubles as a functioning sundial. Others were less maintained: one set of graves was surrounded by a waist-high chain link fence near a highway and could do with some mowing.
One of the cemeteries was well-kept, but desolate; it sat amid a grove far away from any house, overlooking a village in the distance, with a sea of flat gravestones and a few dolls clustered around one grave. Some graves, like that of my ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War, were practically illegible. One set of graves was in somebody’s backyard, which we could not gain access to. And everywhere we went, we saw overgrown, ill-kept, and unvisited graves.
I felt a deep sadness for my relatives on our trips. I hoped, of course, that their souls rested in the Church still, whether in purgatory or, hopefully, heaven, for they were people of faith. But that their bodies should be kept in isolated, unkempt, or noisy places upset me.
We did what we could for the graves we visited. We pulled up overgrown grass, dusted away dead leaves and weeds, and told our family members about our visits. I have tried to keep them in my prayers since. It is an easy thing to forget about the souls of people one never knew.
Yet caring for the dead is no mere hobby for Catholics; it is a requirement of our faith. Both the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy involve caring for the dead, by burying them and by praying for them; for the dead have need of our prayers and cannot intercede on their own behalf in purgatory.
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Purgatory is real, despite what Protestants or Restorationists may say, and though the souls there know they will enter heaven one day, until then they are being purged of their sins. It is only through the passage of time, our prayers, and good works we do while we still live, that we can bring about their entrance into the beatific vision. We cannot do this if we do not keep them in our thoughts, and one of the easiest ways to keep them in our thoughts is to tend to their graves.
Whenever we visit my father’s parents now to decorate their grave, we bring with us an extra cemetery log to place on the grave of one of their siblings, a different one each time. I have not visited some of my distant ancestors’ graves for years; perhaps now I shall return to them. For if we remember our ancestors as the holy women remembered Christ, if we do not forget our relatives and take care of them even after they die, then surely we ourselves will be remembered and cared for by our descendants.
That Holy Thursday night, after I had my revelation, I left the church a little after nine, double genuflecting to the exposed sacrament in the side altar. I went home to await Good Friday, and, after it, Easter Sunday, and the resurrection of the body, as all the dead await the day of resurrection as well.
Until then, let us keep them in our prayers.
