Our Bodies, and Why Physical Things Matter

A friend recently asked me, “What does the Catholic Church teach about burial, cremation, and scattering ashes?”

The question came at an interesting time. I had just updated my own will. Years ago, I planned to donate my body to Palmer College of Chiropractic for medical education—let those kids carve me up! After spending more time reflecting on the Church's teaching, I decided instead on a Catholic burial.

"So why does the Church prefer burial," he asked, "and why are Catholics discouraged from scattering ashes after cremation?"

It's a thoughtful question, and the answer points to something much bigger than funeral practices. It reveals how Catholics understand the human person and how God chooses to meet us.

We Are More Than Souls

Christianity teaches that we are not souls temporarily trapped in bodies. We are a unity of body and soul. God created us as embodied persons, and He declared His creation "very good."

Our bodies are not disposable containers or shells we eventually discard. They are part of who we are. Throughout Scripture, God works not by bypassing our physical nature but by embracing it. The greatest example is the Incarnation. God did not merely send ideas or messages. He became flesh. Jesus entered the world with a real human body that could be seen, touched, embraced, wounded, and ultimately raised from the dead.

If God chose to save us through physical reality, it shouldn't surprise us that He continues to work through physical signs.

A Faith You Can Touch

This is one of the beautiful distinctives of Catholic Christianity.

Throughout the Bible, God uses ordinary physical things to communicate extraordinary grace:

• Water in Baptism.

• Bread and wine in the Eucharist.

• Oil in Anointing.

• The laying on of hands in Holy Orders.

• Spoken vows in Marriage.

• Audible words of absolution in Confession.

None of these physical elements possess power on their own. Rather, God graciously chooses to use created things as instruments of His grace. He reaches embodied people in ways that engage our whole humanity.

Catholic worship reflects this reality. We don't simply listen with our ears or think with our minds. We stand, kneel, bow, make the Sign of the Cross, smell incense, hear Scripture proclaimed, gaze upon sacred art, taste the Eucharist, and receive Christ with our bodies as well as our souls.

This isn't because God needs physical things. It is because we do. He created us as embodied beings, and He lovingly meets us where we are.

Worship Is More Than Information

Many Christians have experienced worship primarily as listening to a sermon and singing songs of praise. Those are beautiful and essential parts of Christian life. But from the beginning, biblical worship has always involved sacrifice.

In the Old Testament, God's people brought offerings to the altar. The sacrifice was not complete simply because something was offered. In many of the sacrificial meals, those participating also consumed what had been offered, expressing communion with God and with one another.

Jesus fulfills those sacrifices in the perfect sacrifice of the Cross.

At every Mass, Catholics do not believe Christ is sacrificed again. Rather, the one sacrifice of Calvary is made sacramentally present to us. We are invited not only to witness that sacrifice but to participate in it through Holy Communion.

Jesus did not merely say, "Remember me."

He said: "Take and eat... This is my body."

The Eucharist is therefore not simply a symbol to contemplate or a message to hear. It is God's invitation to receive Christ Himself. Worship reaches its fullest expression when the sacrifice is consummated in Holy Communion, as Christ gives Himself to His people and His people receive Him with reverence, body and soul.

Even Our Burial Speaks of Hope

This understanding also helps explain the Church's preference for burial.

Whether a person is buried or cremated, God is fully capable of raising the body on the last day. The Church has no doubt about God's power.

When cremation is chosen, however, the Church asks that the ashes be treated with the same reverence shown to the body itself. They should ordinarily be buried or placed in a sacred location rather than scattered or divided among family members.

Why?

Because the body remains worthy of honor even after death. It belonged to a unique person made in the image of God, was washed in Baptism, nourished by the Eucharist, and is destined for resurrection. A grave becomes more than a place of remembrance. It quietly proclaims the Christian hope that death is not the end.

A Faith That Fits Who We Are

The Catholic vision consistently treats the human body as meaningful rather than merely useful. Our bodies are purposeful. They are created as male or female. They are made for relationship. They are ordered toward self-giving love, family, and communion.

And they remain inseparably connected to the person.

This doesn't by itself prove Catholicism. But it forms a remarkably coherent picture of reality—one that helps explain Catholic teaching on human dignity, marriage, sexuality, the sacraments, and even the way we care for our bodies after death.

The God who created our bodies did not abandon them. He took one upon Himself. He redeemed us through His own Body. He feeds us with His Body in the Eucharist. And He promises that one day our bodies, too, will be raised in glory.

That is why physical things matter.

Because they matter to the God who made us.