Morning celebrations

Kleaster sound 9, 2021

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Kleaster morning Wednesday, March 31, 2021

We have arrived today at the last of the seven works of mercy, "burying the dead. It is the Wednesday in the Silent Week of 2021, the week before Easter and thus the week we commemorate Jesus dying and being buried.

Burying the dead. This seventh work of mercy is not in the Bible but was added later. To be exact, by Pope Innocent III in 1207, just over fan 800 years ago. Death was the order of the day then. The infant mortality rate was high, life expectancy low. Deaths were particularly high due to the many wars and pandemics. It was also risky to deal with dead people who had died from an infectious disease such as the plague, for example.

And yet it was considered a work of mercy to bury the dead and to care for the body. Because our body is important. We are our body. We eat, drink and sleep. We move and sprawl. We look, hear, smell, feel and speak. We take care of our bodies and cherish the bodies of our loved ones. Our bodies carry our lives. When we are sick, everything is SO different.

And that is why there is also care for the body at death. The woman in the Bible story for today (Matthew 26, 6-13) cares for Jesus' body with ointment. Jesus says of her:
"She has done me good. By pouring that oil on me, she prepared my body for the tomb.

The poem at the beginning of today's kleaster sound is about Mary's pain, that she cannot hold Jesus' body, cannot care for him as he hangs on the cross. And how comforting it is when we hear in the gospels that Jesus is buried anyway, that his body is anointed. And they wrapped him in cloths. Finally to be laid properly cared for in a new tomb.

Burying the dead. Two questions for reflection for yourself. In today's age of corona, we can no longer attend a funeral or cremation with many people. The farewell is in small circles. We no longer bury the dead en masse. How does this affect good-byes? Do you find it a loss or maybe better?
And one more question about your own dying. How do you want your body cared for when you die and by whom? And where do you want to be buried or scattered?

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