ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates how the threefold structure which van Gennep distinguished can be linked to the Easter triduum, and in turn how an Christological shape may be given to funeral liturgy. Social anthropologists have commented in great depth about death rites in primitive societies, and some of the earliest archaeological evidence that people have of human societies comes from funerary sites. In 1965 the Liturgical Constitution of Vatican II said of the burial rite that "it should express more clearly the paschal nature of Christian death". Good Friday is the day of death. Good Friday demonstrates the terror of death in the loss of communion with God. The transition which Holy Saturday marks is frequently forgotten in talk of the Paschal Mystery and almost never considered in the context of funerals. The Paschal Mystery is a threefold witness to an eschatology which Christian faith asserts is not merely an irruption of chaos but is of teleological significance.
