brated, even to an extent enforced by Sunday closings—now allrnbut abolished in the United States and beginning to be abandonedrnin Europe. Christmas, celebrating the birth of the Sonrnof God, reminded all adults and children of the wonder of humanrnbirth and at the same time alluded to the fulfillment ofrnour deepest hopes in the second coming: “Joy to the World, thernLord is come!” The short-lived celebration of Palm Sunday remindsrnone of the fickleness of celebrity, before the sad events ofrnHoly Week, when the darkness of Good Friday and the cold silencernof the tomb remind believers not only of the death of Jesusrnbut also of their own: “Du gingest, ]esus, uns voran, durchrnLeiden himmelan, Und filhrest jeden, der da glaubt, mit dir dierngleiche Bahn.” (“You went on, Jesus, ahead of us, through sufferingrnto heaven, and lead each one who believes the same roadrnwith you.”)rnThen the glorious Easter morn reminds all—not only thosernwho seriously and earnestly believe the message—that deathrnand the grave are not the real and final goal of human life. Evenrnthe absurd and sometimes atrocious degeneration of the ceremoniesrnand symbolism of Easter into egg hunts and Easter bunniesrnechoes the message of Resurrection hope, although faintlyrnand unintelligibly.rnWith the increasingly rapid, increasingly aggressive secularizationrnof life in the United States, the familiarrnrhythms and seasons are disappearing. When “Christmas Vacation”rnbecomes “Winter Holiday,” the reference-point in divinernpromise and fulfillment is lost, and people are left withrnnothing more than the turning of pages or the hanging of a newrncalendar to mark the great movements of life. The three ceremoniesrnin which virtually all Americans, Protestant, Catholic,rnor Jewish, participated, marking birth (baptism, dedication, circumcision),rnmarriage, and death, sometimes augmented by arncertain coming of age rite, such as Bar Mitzvah, confirmation,rn”joining the church,” or being baptized as a teenager or adult,rnare no longer shared experiences common to the entire culture,rnbut are losing their solemn sacred significance.rnOne-third of the babies born in ithe United States last yearrnwere born to unmarried mothers; marriage, the primary,rnsolemn covenant undertaking of two humans before God, isrnbeing neglected by many, while others seek to transform thern”honorable estate, established by God” into a state-sanctionedrnarrangement available to two members of the same sex as readilyrnas to traditional heterosexual couples. Divorce has becomernso common that some of the trendier religious groups have introducedrnreligious ceremonies for it.rnWhere marriage—the covenant between a man and a womanrn—is falling into oblivion, it is self-evident that there will bernless infant baptism and dedication. Ceremonies seeking tornclaim God’s covenant promises for a child make little sense tornparents, or a single parent, for whom the marriage covenant isrnunimportant. What then are we to expect at the other end ofrnlife, when the thread of life weakens and the approach of deathrnbecomes insistent?rnTraditionally, Christians have sought to accompany the dyingrnwith words and acts intended to remind them and reassurernthem that the God to whom they belonged and whom theyrnserved in life will not abandon them in death, but will bringrnthem through that dark portal into the Father’s house. Indeed,rnso gracious are the promises of God that even those who havernnot believed and served will be given the chance to turn at thernend and to receive the words and signs that promise God’s acceptance.rnAfter death, the Christian funeral is intended torncomfort the living and to encourage them so to believe and livernthat in due course they may “meet on that opposite shore.”rnrrnhe desire to obscure the T frightening aspect ofrndeath is clearly seen inrnthe current fascination withrndeath and dying.rnOf course. Christian sacraments, anointings, prayers, and ultimatelyrnfunerals—aside from the rare deathbed conversion—rnare at best meaningless, at worst mocking for those who havernlived their lives apart from God and his people. Nevertheless,rnall or almost all people are overtaken by apprehension, anxiety,rneven dread at the approach of death. Death confronts thernChristian with the prospect of entering the presence of the holyrnGod, a “mysterium tremendum” that cannot be contemplatedrntotally without apprehension. This is a situation in whichrn”ghostly comfort”—the archaic term for the consolations of thernfaith—is indeed welcome. In our increasingly irreligious culturern—the late Pitirim Sorokin characterized it as being in itsrnlate, degenerate, sensate phase—the consolations of religionrnare still available and offered to those who desire them. Unfortunately,rnin this late sensate culture, the number of those whornknow enough to ask for them is small, and the number who actuallyrnplace confidence in them is even smaller.rnWhere the spiritual sacraments that accompanied and solemnizedrnthe mysteries of birth and marriage and even of comingrnof age fall into disuse and disdain, society develops secularrncounterfeits to meet normal human emotional and sentimentalrnneeds, or, if they cannot actually be met, to put somethingrnaltogether different in their place. How much greater the needrnmust be when people come up against the apparently absoluternlimit, death. Even for the believer, death and the prospect ofrnjudgment will naturally produce at least some stirrings ofrndread. When there is no one to say what if anything awaits onernon the other side of the line, whether it is an awful Judge, a Savior,rnor the abyss of nonbeing, nothing is more natural than tornseek to surround this mystery with institutions and symbols thatrnat least obscure its frightening dimensions if they cannot transformrnthem.rnThe desire to obscure the frightening aspect of death is clearlyrnseen in the current fascination with death and dying, stimulatedrnin this country by the work of the Swiss-born physicianrnDr. Elisabeth Kiibler-Ross. It is expressed in words like this:rn”Dying is as natural a part of life as being born.” The courageousrnwords of an archbishop upon hearing that he has only arnfew months to live, “Death is a friend,” are taken out of the contextrnm which he spoke them and made to extol death. For CardinalrnBernardin, because of his faith in Christ, death is therndoorway to eternal life. Taken out of context, “Death is arnDECEMBER 1996/1 7rnrnrn