Coffins -- Thinking Inside the Box

Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Coffins – Thinking Inside the Box

In an episode of Alice Flo said that when her time came she wanted to be cremated and her ashes scattered over Robert Redford.

Christendom has historically been opposed to cremation, probably because of its pagan associations (think of Dido in The Aeneid), and although c’mon-baby-light-my-fire is somewhat more common now, most folks still prefer to be “charitably enclosed in clay” (Henry V). Indeed, to bury the dead is one of the seven Corporal Works of Mercy (Missale Romanum, p. 33).

Our Lord Himself was buried (He didn’t stay buried, of course) clothed in a shroud, but when possible a box is preferable. And in order to bury someone in a box, someone else must first make the box.

Now ‘way down yonder near New Orleans reposes Abbey St. Joseph, a Benedictine monastery some 120+ years old. The Rule of St. Benedict (6th century constitution written in hopes that people living together wouldn’t squabble at the supper table) is very clear that those associated with a religious order should live a life of work, study, and prayer. And St. Benedict was as serious as Gunny Ermey on a bad helmet day about work; a monk is to milk the cows, till the fields, cut lumber, fire up the forge, and all that sort of thing. A Christian monastery does not live by the begging bowl but by the work of the brothers’ hands. And a gift shop.

Abbey St. Joseph used to do some serious dairying and farming, but now is down to kitchen-gardens and forestry as well as maintaining an out-in-the-woods retreat facility which is very popular with many religious and secular groups despite the lack of neon, gambling, and showgirls. The Abbey also runs a fully-accredited four-year college and helps parishes in the area. In sum, Benedictines do not sit around looking, like, holy and stuff.

Still, the Rule is big on the work-with-your-hands drill. What to do, what to do. Hmmmm. Trees. Lots of trees. Could build stuff out of wood. Why coffins? Actually, the brothers at St. Joseph’s have been making coffins for, again, some 120 years for their own end-of-life use. Even bishops have asked to be buried in coffins made by hand by the Benedictines, and other people, too, began asking about coffins for their loved ones.

Why? I don’t know. Maybe it’s because the idea of being buried in a plain, unpretentious box handmade by men who prayed over it while building it – and sometimes listened to New Orleans Saints’ football games on the radio – is more comforting than an expensive, assembly-line, upholstered, chrome-handled, Buick-y, superheterodyne metal construct more solid – and more expensive – than your first car.

So the brothers agreed to make a few more coffins for sale. Not many boxes; this isn’t Willow Run out on the creek near Covington. Just a few boxes for a little income. And how appropriate that the brothers of a monastery named for St. Joseph, the patron of craftsmen, should craft good and useful things out of wood.

Alas, the State of Louisiana and The Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors cried “Prohiberimus!”

It seems that in Louisiana burying folks is a closed-shop, and that includes the funereal accessories. Even the Louisiana legislature, that model of honesty, efficiency, and service which is the envy of the civilized world, forbids the monks to sell unregulated boxes to people who want unregulated boxes. There is no word on whether or not the monks will be permitted to whittle and then sell unregulated birdhouses or unlicensed windchimes. One wonders if a mourner in Louisiana risks prison time for picking unauthorized flowers from his own unauthorized yard or buying unauthorized flowers from an unauthorized florist and placing said unauthorized flowers on Grandpa’s grave without fee-paid supervision from The Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directions.

In order to sell plain pine boxes the Abbey would have to become a funeral home, complete with embalming facilities, and the monks would have to spend a few years learning how to bury the dead government-style. Understand that this requirement stands even if the brothers never embalm one body or carry out one funeral – this is just to sell boxes, pine boxes.

Alas that the Benedictines at Abbey St. Joseph hadn’t thought to build little mosques instead; the State of Louisiana would have backed away in terror at the possibility of being labeled insensitive.

A disclaimer: The brothers of Abbey St. Joseph are kind and patient in putting up with my presence for two or three days most every year. This is probably because Abbot Justin hasn’t yet discovered that every now and then Fr. Raph and I sneak out back for a cigar.

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