Funerals are family or State ceremonies conducted after the death of a person, in order to honour him. It is essentially a series of related rites or rituals that are exclusive to one’s religion or culture.
Most Christian funerals have rituals that can be categorized into three categories of events – visitation, funeral and in the end, the burial. The visitation and funeral parts have higher significance from the ritualistic point of view and have been discussed here.
The first part is the visitation, when the body is placed in a coffin for public viewing by friends and relatives. The body is mostly adorned with the finest garments and jewellery belonging to the deceased. Some communities follow the rite of anointing the body, though not all cultures are bound to do it.
Some families prefer displaying memories from the life of the dead person at visitation in the form of photos and personal articles that were prized belongings of the dead person. Some families even play a video or do a slideshow from the lifetime of the deceased.
The visitation ceremony is followed by the second part of rituals, the memorial service, also called funeral, and it is conducted in a church. The coffin is then taken to the church in a hearse and the friends and relatives of the deceased follow the hearse. The coffin with its floral arrangement is then placed inside the church.
Funeral services normally include chants and readings from the Holy Scriptures and the Bible. The people attending the funeral also sing devotional songs. The priest presiding over the service delivers a comforting speech, and it is followed by eulogies or tributes given by relatives and close friends of the deceased, who speak of the latter’s merits and accomplishments. Sometimes, mourners are permitted to view the body for the last time before the burial takes place. The service might begin and end by gonging of church bells.
Once these ceremonies are over, the body is taken in a funeral cortege for burial, which marks the end of the funeral ceremony.
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