Great reflection on the Church's funeral rite.

Zenit News Agency carried the homily given by Pope Benedict for Manuela Camagni, one of the consecrated ladies who care for the Pope and the Papal Apartments, who was killed in a car accident last week. At the end of the homily, he gave what I believe is a great reflection for any of us who have attended funerals of loved ones.

So, in this moment of sadness, we are consoled. And the liturgy renewed after the Council dares to teach us to sing "Alleluia" even in the Mass for the Dead. This is audacious! We feel above all the pain of the loss, we feel above all the absence, the past, but the liturgy knows that we are in the Body itself of Christ and that we live from the memory of God, which is our memory. In this intertwining of his memory and of our memory we are together, we are living. We pray to the Lord that we may feel increasingly this communion of memory, that our memory of God in Christ may become ever more alive, and thus be able to feel that our true life is in him and in him we all rest united. In this sense, we sing "Alleluia," certain that the Lord is life and his love is never ending. Amen.