Estate planning is the process of taking inventory of material possessions and providing for the people we leave behind after death, especially children or other people we are responsible for.

Preparing an estate plan involves creating an inventory of our possessions, planning for what will happ...

The best way to mourn with someone is to focus on being present with the person, walking with them in their grief. Rather than offering platitudes, we should ask questions about their loved one, giving our grieving friend an opportunity to talk about and remember them.

When someone we love is gr...

The final part of the funeral—the committal—takes place at the graveside, then the body is laid to rest.

After the funeral Mass concludes, the body is often immediately interred in its final resting place at the cemetery. Funeral attendees follow the hearse in procession to the grave, which is a...

As part of its mission to help Catholics understand, live, and share their faith, the Augustine Institute encourages individuals and families to think about and prepare for death.

An advanced directive is a legal document that specifies our wishes in the event we cannot make decisions for ourselves at the end of life.
Advanced directives clarify our end-of-life wishes. An example of an advance directive is a living will—essentially an open letter to doctors outlining the d...

Yes, the Catholic Church permits cremation, but full-body earth burials are still preferred.

The Catholic Church has permitted cremation since the Second Vatican Council, though the strong preference remains full-body burials. Cremation is permissible in situations of limited burial space, inade...

A will is the basic legal document of estate planning.

A will allows us to designate who we’d like to oversee the distribution of our assets and who should receive those assets after our death. Scripture is clear: all assets and possessions are gifts from God. When we recognize the importance of...

Grief is a natural process of yearning for the presence of another whom we have loved and lost.

In life, we form attachments to other people out of love for them and their presence. When we lose someone through death, separation, or other circumstances, we suffer through a period of “searching” ...

When the body and soul separate, we call it death.

There is a tremendous and tragic difference between a living person and a corpse: the absence of the soul, that which makes a body a living body. After death, we recognize that the person of our loved one is somehow no longer present, even if hi...