Last Updated on July 27, 2022 by Brad
When my grandfather passed away in April 2017, I came across a reading that I thought captured our sentiments in a poetic and succinct way better than I ever could have, proving once again the great treasure we have in sacred scripture. This reading is in the optional readings of the Roman Missal for funerals and is taken from Sirach 44*:
Now will I praise those godly men, our ancestors, each in his own time: These were godly men whose virtues have not been forgotten; their wealth remains in their families, their heritage with their descendants; through God’s covenant with them their family endures, their posterity for their sake.
And for all time their progeny will endure, their glory will never be blotted out; their bodies are peacefully laid away, but their name lives on and on. At gatherings their wisdom is retold, and the assembly proclaims their praise.
Sirach is a book of Hebrew Scripture found in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles but commonly omitted elsewhere. This difference in scripture canon is the result of various texts being considered authoritative by the leading Jewish scholars at different points in history; thus, many Bibles have 66 books, Catholic Bibles have 73, and the Orthodox recognize 80 (or 81, in some cases).