The most solemn of the corporal works of mercy is the mission of a small number of comforting nonprofits, proverbial friends in need to those experiencing grief while also facing financial ruin.
It may be akin to the Fifth Beatle, Gummo Marx, that other infielder who played with Tinkers, Evers, and Chance, and whatever else may be an afterthought or a perceived fifth wheel: the work of corporal mercy that calls out to bury the dead.
Of the seven charitable actions enshrined in catechism and tradition, this is considered the last and final. It is often forgotten because, unlike its six predecessors—feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, visiting the imprisoned and the sick, and clothing the naked—it does not emanate from Jesus’s teaching to His Apostles on the Mount of Olives: “For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.”
Dead, and ye buried me?
While those are not words, direct or proximate, found in the Gospel of Matthew, burying the dead indeed has been a revered practice of Christianity—which holds bodily resurrection as a tenet of the faith. Imbued with ceremony and solemnity, a thing definitive of the catacombs, and eventually recognized, more formally, by the emerging Early Church as a charitable mercy on par with those others articulated by Jesus, the burial of the dead is a religious mandate and cultural norm now manifested in America—two millennia later—through a small number of nonprofit organizations explicitly dedicated to carrying out this particular compassionate act.
As with the other corporal works, it points towards salvation as an expression of the great command to love thy neighbor. But: How did the Seventh Mercy gain its status?
Those seeking a biblical justification will find it in the Old Testament, where Tobit wrote:
In the days of Shalmane′ser I performed many acts of charity to my brethren. I would give my bread to the hungry and my clothing to the naked; and if I saw any one of my people dead and thrown out behind the wall of Nin′eveh, I would bury him. And if Sennach′erib the king put to death any who came fleeing from Judea, I buried them secretly.
Other justifications can be found in Roman Catholicism’s Catechism, which teaches that “The bodies of the dead must be treated with respect and charity, in faith and hope of the Resurrection. The burial of the dead is a corporal work of mercy; it honors the children of God, who are temples of the Holy Spirit.”
Though this may be the corporal work that has animated the least relative activity, and least individual responsiveness, there are nonetheless diligent, profound, and inspiring American charities which embrace the directive to bury the dead.
One such nonprofit is Kaden's Cause, founded by Brian and Kara Harris following the sudden death of 16-month-old Kaden Layne Harris. Serving families of children ages five and younger, the Kentucky-based charity’s mission is to “support families affected by the tragedy of losing a child, assist low-wealth individuals and families with funding to cover funeral/cremation, cemetery, and monument costs, and spread kindness throughout our communities in honor of Kaden.”
The organization’s determined executive director, Lisa Bramlage, says the cause to help families of limited or no means seeking to bury a child started small. “We were able to help three families the first year, and then 11, and the next year 111,” and now the nonprofit provides important assistance to “between 200 and 250 families” annually.
She says Kaden’s Cause is able to do so much in part because it “works in collaboration with other wonderful organizations.” In additional to actual financial help—stipends are about $500—Bramlage has found partners in performing the corporal work. One company, for example, helps provide caskets at “a fourth of the market cost,” while a monument company provides free grave markers. “And we’ve got a transportation and shipping company to help ship and deliver them.” Another company provides free cremation urns. “And then there are people who donate cemetery land all over the country.”
Beyond its Kentucky roots, Kaden’s Cause has helped families in all 50 states bury their taken-too-soon children.
Bramlage says she prays regularly seeking help for this quite spiritual enterprise, hoping to alleviate some small amount of suffering, compounded by practical concerns and financial demand. Her experience: “God shows up in big ways.” Kaden’s Cause, she says, “has been a blessing in my life that I never would have imagined.”
Another organization seeking to bring comfort and true aide for poor families challenged with young death is Final Farewell, a Jenkintown, Pennsylvania-based charity that “provides financial assistance, advice and guidance to grieving families from all religions and backgrounds so they may provide an affordable and decent funeral for their loved child.”
Founded by Thomas and Patricia Quinn, owners of a funeral home in an “economically challenged” part of Philadelphia, the couple were frequently confronted with the dire straits, emotional and financial, experienced by families who had lost a child and had no resources for a funeral or burial. The Quinns’ efforts began anecdotally, annually helping a small handful of families with cash and by “contacting other vendors willing to donate funeral or burial-related services.” After hearing a local radio fundraiser aiming to help critically ill children—which offered “nothing towards providing a proper burial for those children who do not survive their illnesses”—they “decided to form Final Farewell to fill that obvious need.”
Since 2006, Final Farewell—focusing on “less fortunate children” who have met with death—has helped hundreds of families at their moment of staggering grief. While the nonprofit does the vast majority of its charitable work in the Philadelphia area, it also assists families throughout the Commonwealth and across the nation, and relies on a range of sources—grants from private foundations, individual donations, and the proceeds from fundraiser events—to underwrite its mission.
It has created a Charity Policy which tracks federal poverty guidelines, and in some cases grieving families “may receive full funeral services, including burial, at no cost.”
Another nonprofit offering a range of financial and emotional-support programs to see families through the crisis of childhood death is The TEARS Foundation, a Puyallup, Washington-based charity founded by Sarah Slack “to compassionately assist bereaved parents with emotional support and financial assistance for funeral expenses when their precious child dies.”
Its origins are Slack’s personal tragedy: When her son Jesse died, she was forced “to resort to a garage sale to raise enough money for his headstone.” Wondering “how many other families were struggling with the same financial burden on top of their emotional anguish,” Slack “decided to do something about it” and by helping “one family who was in a similar situation.” Realizing there were “many more families in similar need,” she launched the charity.
TEARS now has chapters in 17 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and in the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Kenya, and Uganda. It sponsors a range of targeted programs offering financial support for youth funerals and burials. The Charlie and Braden program provides “funeral assistance for children between 1 and 12 years old, who die from external causes (such as Suicide, Accident, or Sudden Unexplained Death of a Child), Jesse's Grant helps families with assistance for grave markers, The Luca John Fund underwrites the costs of funerals for babies up to one-year-old, and Cali's Gift “financially assists parents whose child (ages 13-22) has died due to drug related issues and/or completed suicide with funeral assistance and/or grief counseling support.”
Back to history: It just may be the case that this mercy of burying the dead is a key reason the early Church could emerge from the catacombs and Roman persecutions. Not unnoticed by the authorities was the passion early Christians had for properly handling the bodies of their co-religionists, and of all people. In a recent America Magazine article, Jesuit theologian Fr. James F. Keenan wrote that
the emperor Julian contended that one of the factors favoring the growth of Christianity was the great care Christians took in burying the dead. Though individuals often performed the task, the church as a community assigned it to the deacons, and, as Tertullian tells us, the expenses were assumed by the community.
Keenan also quoted the early Christian scholar Lactantius, who “reminds us further that not only did Christians bury the Christian dead, but they buried all of the abandoned”—
We will not therefore allow the image and workmanship of God to lie as prey for beasts and birds, but we shall return it to the earth, whence it sprang: although we will fulfill this duty of kinsmen on an unknown man, humaneness will take over and fill the place of kinsmen who are lacking (Instit. 6.12).
On such meaningful practices did our civilization grow. Like all things deemed last, this seventh of the seven corporal works of mercy is indeed not least. It is, after all, yet another way to fulfill the commandment to love thy neighbor, especially those neighbors recently departed. As we all too will be some day.
