30 Cemeteries to Serve You
For Catholics, the rites and traditions of Christian burial are understood to reflect our faith in the resurrection and everlasting life. Burial or entombment in a Catholic cemetery is the right of every Catholic who has tried to live up to the teachings of the Gospel.
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered each day for all those souls who have gone to God and whose bodies are entrusted to our care.
A Letter from the Archbishop
Most Reverend Christopher J. Coyne Archbishop of Hartford
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
A significant truth of our Catholic faith resides in the fact that we “look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” [Nicene Creed]. The Creed ends this way because, to an extent, we can say that heaven is not the goal. Heaven, when it comes to completion, will be the unity of heaven and earth.
The resurrection of the body means that we will be reunited to our bodies when Christ comes again. This is not, however, a simple resuscitation of our earthly bodies as they exist now or may exist in death. Just as Christ is risen in a body that no longer suffers or is corruptible, so too we will also share this incorruptible glory with our own resurrected bodies. This is a strong affirmation that our bodies are not only good, but they are gifts to us from God that are to be respected and affirmed as bearers of our soul and temples of the Holy Spirit.
The belief in a bodily resurrection is one of our primal beliefs, understood from the very foundation of the Church. As such, we Christians have maintained the practice from the early apostolic age of treating the bodily remains of our brothers and sisters in death with honor and respect as temples that were once vessels of our souls and now icons of the hope-for resurrection of the dead. This truth remains with us today in our life as Catholic Community.
The Catholic Cemetery Association of the Archdioceses of Hartford is available to you as a ministry of the Church to provide the necessary pre-planning of funeral rites of the Church or to be present to you when a loved one has died. They will walk with you in making your own plans for burial or assisting you in a particular moment of death. I invite you to explore this website and seek any assistance they can give you.
In all these matters, my prayer along with you is that we may offer together the words with which we are so familiar:
Eternal rest grant onto them, O Lord, and may the perpetual light shine upon them.
My their souls and all the souls of the people of God rest in peace. Amen.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Most Reverend Christopher J. Coyne, Archbishop of Hartford