Casket Donations On the Rise
The New Melleray monks and our co-workers at Trappist Caskets are witnessing a recent rise in requests for infant, child, and youth caskets. When contacted for a casket by a family who has lost a child, we provide the casket without charge. Over the course of the past two months, donations of caskets for children are averaging four or five a week. No doubt, word is getting around concerning our outreach to families who experience this unique type of suffering. We have also noted that such requests ebb and flow and a week may pass with only one such request. Besides caskets for children, we also donate caskets for “premies”, (children born prematurely who die), as well as small urns for infants who are cremated. The letters we receive from families who have received donated caskets confirms that this is one of the most mysterious and spiritually fruitful aspects of the work we do at Trappist Caskets. Another facet of the mystery is the “Child Casket Fund”, which is featured on the Trappist Caskets website. This provides visitors to the website the opportunity to contribute to a fund which helps us pay for the material and labor required to build the hundreds of finely crafted caskets and urns we give away. Again and again, we have been surprised at how the depth of sorrow experienced by the family of a deceased child calls up from the hearts of others a commensurate depth of compassion and generosity. Watching the many caskets depart from our loading dock and the complimentary movement of new contributions flowing into the Child Casket Fund, one witnesses a drama something like the drama of salvation unfolding in the bible and in the church’s liturgy. The monks routinely offer prayers for these “little ones” so dear to our Lord and invite visitors to our website to offer their prayers as well.