6533b831fe1ef96bd1299bbb

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Teologia nadziei w posoborowych obrzędach pogrzebowych

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The faith in C hrisfs resurrection had a great impact on the funeral rites of the early Church. For his followers, the day o f death was not considered as the end o f everything but, indeed, it was regarded the day of birth for heaven. The spirit of hope for etemal life characterized the Funeral Rites o f the first Christian communities. Also the Second Vatican Council has ordered to arrange the Rites in such a way that they would express more clearly the Paschal character of death of the contemporary Christians. But in the last decades of the 20th century incredible changes o f the former funeral customs have been noted. It is clearly evident especially in the societies that - embraced by the processes of secularization - are mostly focused on the quality of the earthly life. In consequence they do not make any effort to talk about the life to come nor on the hope that arises from the fact of the etemal life. Therefore it is very important for the Church to go out with her teaching to the people afflicted by death of their relatives. The author of this paper intended to present the drama of Catholic Funeral Rites to make more comprehensible the relation between their theological and soteriological aspects. This should help to show the scale of hope in the anthropological view on the sense of human life.