Today I would like to deal with a rare subject, which certainly is no longer part of the majority's thinking and probably, in many cases, not even belongs to the best and most sympathetic consciences: the importance of the burial of the dead.
A subject so uncommon that only St. Augustine could take charge of it and deal with it. In particular, the benefit that being buried under a saint's memory can bring the deceased.
In fact, St. Augustine speaks of it in DE CURA PRO MORTUIS GERENDA LIBER UNUS (On the care due to the dead), 4,6.
The burial itself could also have no value since coelo tegitur, qui non habet urnam, if the burial were not a μνήμη, a memory, and the memory did not benefit the deceased, and the memory did not find the basis in the affection of he who remembers and prays for the deceased and beloved and entrusts and associates his prayers and remembrance with the name of a holy place or a martyr or a saint. It is in the power of merit, in having deserved the affection of loved ones when one was alive that the μνήμη is founded. And memory has already become a form of election.
And being the deceased buried in a holy place or being remembered by associating it with the name of a saint is a sort of strengthening, enhancing of the μνήμη. But in the absence of that μνήμη, in the absence of the merits acquired in life that earned him the μνήμη, the entire structure that supports all this would decay and it would be then of no value to be buried in a holy place or fictitiously and surreptitiously associated with the name of a saint.
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