Visiting cemeteries is an eternal work of mercy, and makes for wonderful field trips with our children. Not only does it bring uppermost to all of our minds the shortness of this life, and the reality of death, but cemeteries are actually just wonderfully peaceful places to visit. Many are actually registered arboretums.
We often combine Faith with science and history at graveyards. There are wonderful leaves to be collected this time of year, and we are literally surrounded by history. It's always interesting, for instance, to note the many graves from the influenza epidemic around 1917, as well as the wartime graves, and the high infant mortality rate is so sadly evident a hundred years ago.
Believe it or not, we do some math practice at the cemetery, too, by having the children cipher as quickly as they can the ages of the dearly departed, and how long ago they lived. While it may seem morbid to some, we think death should be understood as a natural part of life. And the departed are looking down from Purgatory, we just know, and are delighted to have us there praying for them!
I remember doing the same thing as a child. I used to while away and hour or so. Thinking about the lives and characters of the names on the gravestones.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how peaceful cemetaries can be.
God Bless
Suzyx