Watch as Bishop Earl Boyea provides a fitting and prayerful interment upon All Souls’ Day for the ashes from the Sparrow Medical Examiner’s Office in Lansing that have gone unwanted and uncollected over the past year. May they rest in peace.
“They are of matter, and they do matter, and we can't forget that. There’re too many forces in our society today which will just dismiss the body as a thing that doesn't matter at all. They do matter,” said Bishop Boyea to those gathered at Saint Joseph Cemetery in Lansing, November 2.
“And that's why, when we talk about the resurrection from the dead, we know that when we die our souls are separated from our bodies and we are incomplete until the resurrection of the dead when our glorified bodies will join with our souls. Then we're complete.”
Deacon Collom serves the parish of Saint Martha in Okemos. In recent years he has undertaken to organize the burying of the dead on All Souls’ Day as a corporal work of mercy. In total the cremated mortal remains of 33 deceased persons were interred this year: 28 adults and 5 infants.
“We as Catholics believe that the moment of conception is when God ensouls someone,” said Deacon Collom, “and so, regardless of how old they are when they die, whether they’re 24-hours-old or 100-years-old, they’re deserving of our respect and our love, the same way that God loves and respects them.”
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. Amen.