Article

A Perspective on the Archdiocesan Cemeteries of Philadelphia & Catholic Burial Traditions

Our humanity is defined by the mortality that comes with life. We are born, we die, and in between we contemplate certain universal questions:

1. How do we deal with loss and with the grief that follows?
2. What happens to us after death?
3. How do we continue with our lives following the death of a loved one?

In 2012, my wife, Nadine, lost a five-year struggle with lung cancer. While I knew that Nadine’s cancer was terminal, the grief and loss that followed was no less profound. How would I go on? How would I hold my family together and continue to nurture and direct my three twenty-something sons? How would I resume my life?

To read the full article, please click here.

“A Perspective on the Archdiocesan Cemeteries of Philadelphia & Catholic Burial Traditions,” by Lewis J. Hoch was published in the February 2018 issue of Catholic Cemetery. Reprinted with permission.