For the past year, Pope Francis has asked us to reflect upon the mercy of God. That year of special intensity concluded with the closing of the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome on Nov. 20, the Feast of Christ the King.

We may see another Jubilee Year in our lifetimes, but for now, we take the lessons of mercy and apply them more fervently to our lives of faith.

With this reflection, we will conclude our consideration of the corporal works of mercy that concentrate on bringing God’s love and mercy to our bodies and to this physical world.

So far, we have in this column examined six of the seven corporal works of mercy. Those are: feeding the hungry; giving drink to the thirsty; clothing the naked; giving shelter to the homeless; visiting the sick and ransoming the captive, more commonly known as visiting the imprisoned.

The final corporal work of mercy is burying the dead.

This corporal work has deep spiritual implications. First, it reminds us that death is an integral part of our road to eternal life. Even though we are told, “God did not make death” (Wis 1:13) as part of His original plan for the world, still death entered into our world because of sin (Rom 5:12).

Every one of us will confront personally this end of our earthly time. In a way personalized to each of us but now known only to God, we will be joined to the death that Jesus underwent for us, in His case on the cross. In every instance, death will involve the body’s loss of its life principle, the soul.

Our souls will continue to live and will pass through personal and general judgment after death.

However, the question of the body remains. And in our faith, the body is the promise of immortality.

The body that we have in this life will be the glorified body of eternal life with Christ. Just as Jesus rose with a glorified body from the tomb, just as Mary was taken body and soul to heaven, so our hope is to be in our glorified body with God and with our loved ones.

It is for this deep reason of faith that our bodies, both in life and in death merit such respect. The body is a gift from God entrusted to us and we receive it as He has given it to us. It must be our outlook of gratitude that all elements of the body, including its gender, its fertility and its general presentation of us to the world is received from the hand of God.

That respect, and the faith-filled gazing to the future resurrection of all men and women, is the basis for the mercy we show in burying the dead.

We know of the sad alternatives that can take place in a time of natural disaster or even medical catastrophes like the plague in ages past. Bodies went unburied, left to the ravages of nature. The dignity of those bodies, still in the hand of God, went unfulfilled. In our own day, in parts of the world the poor or forgotten can still go unclaimed and untended after death.

So important is the burial of the dead that on Aug. 15 of this year, the Feast of Mary’s Assumption body and soul to heaven, the Vatican issued a reminder specifically approved by Pope Francis on this issue. It restated our respect for our bodies after death.

The statement notes, “By burying the bodies of the faithful, the church confirms her faith in the resurrection of the body. … The church continues to prefer the practice of burying the bodies of the deceased, because this shows a greater esteem toward the deceased. Nevertheless, cremation is not prohibited, ‘unless it was chosen for reasons contrary to Christian doctrine.’” (“Instruction Ad resurgendum cum Christo,” 3, 4).

And the reminder to our faith approved by Pope Francis continues, “ … the conservation of the ashes of the departed in a domestic residence is not permitted. … it is not permitted to scatter the ashes of the faithful departed in the air, on land, at sea or in some other way, nor may they be preserved in mementos, pieces of jewelry or other objects.” (“IARCC,” 6, 7).

The beauty of the human body at every stage of life, from birth, to youth to the last moments of old age is not derived from fleeting human considerations. Rather, it is a dignity that comes from sharing our bodies with the incarnation of the Son of God. To bury the dead is lovingly to see to remains, as did Joseph of Arimathea for Jesus on Good Friday. For Joseph, as for us, it is truly an act of mercy.