New burial space a remedy to trivializing of death: archbishop 

At a time when the mystery of dying and death is “shrouded in avoidance or reduced to trivialities,” a new Catholic burial place in Surrey is “keeping alive the great truths about hope and eternal life that are at the bedrock of our Catholic faith,” said Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB.

Speaking at a dedication ceremony at Gardens of Gethsemani Cemetery, the archbishop said the new mausolea and columbaria is “a sacred edifice (that) has every right to claim to be the Lower Mainland’s newest, beautiful and reverent cemetery space” while bearing “eloquent testimony to our belief in the resurrection of the body.”

Archbishop Miller said the new sacred space “continues the tradition begun nearly 60 years ago when the Gardens of Gethsemani was first opened as a place whose ministry is to prepare the living for eternal life, to bury the dead with the beauty and reverence which the Catholic tradition provides, and to comfort the living with the compassion and care rooted in Jesus Christ.”

At a ceremony after Mass, the archbishop recalled the night of Jesus’ Passion when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemani. “An angel accompanied Jesus and offered him strength and comfort at this time of his trial,” he said. 

The  mausoleum was named for the Holy Angels at the suggestion of Father John Horgan, pastor of St. Pius X in North Vancouver and an author and expert on the subject of saints and angels. Quoting Father Horgan, the archbishop said, “The mission of the angels does not terminate with the earthly life of their charges, but only upon the entrance into paradise of those souls committed to their care.”

In a similar way, Archbishop Miller said, God has “charged his angels to watch over and protect our cemeteries, which are sacred ground, because they contain the bodies of our loved ones who were consecrated by baptism during their life and who await the resurrection of the dead on the last day.”

The archbishop asked God to “send his Holy Angels to safeguard the deceased and to comfort those who mourn their loved ones.”

In times of loss, the angels accompany the loved ones of the departed, “consoling them and renewing their hope in the fullness of life to come, he said.

To learn more about Holy Angels Mausolea & Columbaria visit holyangelsatgardens.ca.