Most high school students, at some point in their educational career, are asked to complete service hours where they volunteer a certain amount of their time helping someone in need as a requirement for graduation.
If I recall correctly, most of my service hours involved mundane tasks like raking leaves or manning a water station at a half marathon. But local Catholic high schools, as well as Denver’s Mount Olivet Catholic cemetery, are coming up with ways to make these hours more spiritually meaningful for students.
That is why, last week, a small group of students from Holy Family Catholic High School in Broomfield attended and served at the funeral and committal service of a local person without any resources and limited family and friends. The students served in various capacities at both the Mass and the committal, including pallbearers, altar servers, and attendees praying for the dead.
“Having the chance to practice the spiritual and corporal works of mercy is a great opportunity for our students,” Bernie De Santis, who serves as the director of campus ministry at Holy Family, told the Denver Catholic.
“Especially burying the dead is one that most people don’t get many chances to do. In addition to a general memento mori (remember your death) message we might get at any funeral, the specific circumstances of this funeral really highlighted the dignity of all human life from conception to natural death and beyond,” he added.
The students’ participation in the funeral and committal encompassed the corporal work of mercy of burying the dead, as well as the spiritual works of mercy of comforting the sorrowful and praying for the dead.
Deacon Marc Nestorick, the outreach manager for Catholic Funeral and Cemetery Services with the Archdiocese of Denver, helped to arrange the students’ service at the funeral Mass and committal. He said high school students have been providing service hours at Mount Olivet for two years now, but an article he had seen this summer inspired him to invite the students to take on more active roles like pallbearing.
“We wanted the students to gain an understanding of the funeral Mass as well as experience the corporal work of mercy of burying the dead. I was hoping they could see the beauty and wisdom that exists in the funeral liturgies,” Nestorick told the Denver Catholic.
“We believe that praying for the dead is important,” he said. “Through our prayers we hope to intercede on the part of those who passed away, asking for God’s mercy so that they can join him in heaven. Furthermore, when we pray and bury the dead, we confront the reality of our own death. This can have an amazing impact on our spirituality and love of God.”
The students that participated in the Mass and committal did so with “love and compassion,” Nestorick said, and the three family members of the deceased that were present were “moved to tears” by the students’ participation and compassion.
“Many gave hugs to the family members who were in attendance,” Nestorick noted.
Comforting the family members was important, “to show the bereaved that they and their loved one matters, even to people that don’t know them,” De Santis added. He said he plans on repeating the experience with more students, perhaps with more built-in time for reflection.
Nestorick said he is speaking with other Catholic high schools in the Archdiocese about involving more students in volunteering at funerals and committal services as well.