I attended a Catholic funeral Friday

[Reuben_J]

The only thing I have forbidden for my funeral is the singing of Amazing Freaking Grace. :banghead: blech.

In fact, I’ve picked out all the songs and the readings. My pastor has it filed under “Dead Pianists”.

I remember a member of our music team who prepared her own list of songs for her funeral mass / memorial service and sure enough, Amazing Grace, was not included in the list. She was discovered with cancer and thus had time to plan her own funeral. It was such heart-breaking moment for us when we found out that she actually did all that.

I don’t mind Amazing Grace except for the fact that it is too common for funerals. I also have known families who would prefer more lively songs for these occasions.

 

[tee_eff_em]

In fact, I’ve picked out all the songs and the readings. My pastor has it filed under “Dead Pianists”.

Speaking of “Dead Pianists”

I’m sure you’ve heard the recent news that they exhumed Ludwig van Beethoven’s grave? And when they did so, strange noises were observed to be emanating from the casket, so they opened it up and, to much surprise, discovered a very, very old German man, furiously erasing papers?

He scowled over his shoulder and said: "Shut that lid! Can’t you see I’m decomposing!?"



tee

 

[Phemie]

Speaking of “Dead Pianists”

I’m sure you’ve heard the recent news that they exhumed Ludwig van Beethoven’s grave? And when they did so, strange noises were observed to be emanating from the casket, so they opened it up and, to much surprise, discovered a very, very old German man, furiously erasing papers?

He scowled over his shoulder and said: "Shut that lid! Can’t you see I’m decomposing!?"


tee

Reminding us of this gem:
dailymotion.com/video/x2xz9la

 

[pianistclare]

Reminding us of this gem:
dailymotion.com/video/x2xz9la

Excellent!

 

[Dorothy]

Our parish has stopped the practice of ggiving eulogies at funeral mass.

If relatives of the deceased want to do that they have to find some other occasion but not in the mass.

That is good news!

I, too, like some of the others in this thread, have left instructions to my children to not talk about me after the funeral mass. If they wish to they can do it at the funeral parlor, or afterwards at a family gathering.

I am a part of 98% of our parish funerals, as a reader for about ten years now. No one needs to be held captive when such sharing gets out of hand, and they do.

The emphasis needs to be on Our Lord Jesus Christ, and prayers for the deceased.

 

[bluerose]

I’ve always said that my preferred way of hearing Amazing Grace is played by a piper, walking down the south side of a hill while I’m standing at the bottom of the north side.

Me, too!

 

[Rosebud77]

Here in Ireland we also have The Removal, whereby the coffin is moved from eg the home or the funeral parlour to the church the evening before the funeral .

One thing that is gathering momentum here is putting the deceased’s favourite things atop the coffin or on the altar, eg footballs etc.

 

[Phemie]

Reminding us of this gem:
dailymotion.com/video/x2xz9la

Better site
youtube.com/watch?v=sjWPXybVjYE

 

[Phemie]

Here in Ireland we also have The Removal, whereby the coffin is moved from eg the home or the funeral parlour to the church the evening before the funeral .

One thing that is gathering momentum here is putting the deceased’s favourite things atop the coffin or on the altar, eg footballs etc.

We have the same in Canada: Transfer of the Body to the Church or Place of Committal. It’s not done often from the funeral parlour, depends on the family and the priest. We don’t usually have a funeral procession from the funeral parlour to the church.

To your second point, I’ve seen a full trapper’s tent set up in our sanctuary but that was allowed by a priest who allowed the families anything they wanted. On the casket we allow nothing once the pall is placed. Nothing on the altar either. Now nothing is allowed in the sanctuary that wouldn’t be there at any other Mass.

 

[Gorgias]

I disagree that “all Catholic funeral Masses are like that.”

That’s right. Some Catholic funeral Masses are celebrated with disregard for the rubrics… :sad_yes:

My copy of the “Order of Christian Funerals” at # 170 states “A member or a friend of the family may speak in remembrance of the deceased before the final commendation begins.”

The thing is, you’re missing part of the equation. At #169, the rite states “if the final commendation is to be celebrated at the place of committal, the procession to the place of committal (no. 176) begins following the prayer after communion.”

In other words, if all the funeral rites will end in church, then it’s possible to have a eulogy following the prayer after communion. Otherwise, if the commendation and committal will take place at the cemetery, then we skip directly to “in peace let us take our brother/sister to his/her place of rest.”

However, it is clear from the Rite that someone may, in fact, speak at the end of Mass before the Final Commendation.

But only in certain cases. If this has happened at “the majority of funerals [you] have attended”, does that mean that it’s happening illicitly?

The majority of funerals I have attended have included such a remembrance by a family member.

The problem with eulogies is that they run counter to the purposes of a funeral Mass. We’re there to pray for the dead and console the living. If the priest celebrant preaches well, then he leads the congregation to ponder the notion of ‘eternal life’, not the thought that ‘Grandma’s gone forever’. And then, a member of the family – usually untrained in public speaking, and usually without thorough formation in the Catholic faith – gets up. This family member is himself grieving for his loved one. And he gets up and changes the direction of the funeral 180º. His talk, reminiscing about the Christmas cookies Grandma baked, and how he’s gonna miss her, changes the mood from ‘eternal life’ to ‘gloom and doom.’ The family and friends weep. Worse yet, depending on the eulogist, we may hear how Grandma is now the butterfly who flits around us as we walk in the field, or how her spirit is now in the kitchen, baking eternal cookies for us. And then the entire congregation, red-eyed and tearful, leaves the Mass. Does that “console the living”? Hardly.

Not. Cool. And all of this is done in the name of ‘pastoral sensitivity’ and a sense that we’re just doing what is expected. Bleh.

 

[Rosebud77]

We have the same in Canada: Transfer of the Body to the Church or Place of Committal. It’s not done often from the funeral parlour, depends on the family and the priest. We don’t usually have a funeral procession from the funeral parlour to the church.

To your second point, I’ve seen a full trapper’s tent set up in our sanctuary but that was allowed by a priest who allowed the families anything they wanted. On the casket we allow nothing once the pall is placed. Nothing on the altar either. Now nothing is allowed in the sanctuary that wouldn’t be there at any other Mass.

Here there is a procession. I got held up one evening on a big road as the procession was making its way to the church .It was , creepy actually. The orange street lights and the dark clad figures…

In the cathedral, only a photo of the deceased is on the coffin the day before and funerals are a part of daily mass there. If i see a coffin I do not go in as I do not know the family,

I do nto like the souvenirs, but when it is the sudden death of a child? Anything that may help.

 

[otjm]

This is an alarmingly frequent twocents practice at my parish’s funeral Masses.

I am on record, having charged my daughter: "I cannot stop you from saying anything, if that’s what you want to do, but if you do not begin with the words

This Is The Part My Father Said Not To Do

, I will sit up in the casket then and there and commence haunting you!" :bigyikes:


tee
“I’m not dead yet!”

My mother had threatened that if we had a eulogy at her Mass, she would kick the side of the casket. When we met with the pastor for the arrangements for the Mass, he invited us to determine who would say the final words at the end of Mass, and we (my two brothers and I) almost in chorus repeated her threat and made it perfectly clear absolutely no one was going to say anything.

Her casket, at her request, was a humble pine casket made by the Trappist monks, and would have been a fine sounding board had she decided to give it a kick. No way were we going to chance it.

8 concelebrants including one relative priest, a proper and formal Mass, and not a word about her.

We did not have the rosary the night before at a funeral home, as there was no formal funeral home. Rosary was before Mass.

 

[MissRose73]

Our parish has stopped the practice of ggiving eulogies at funeral mass.

If relatives of the deceased want to do that they have to find some other occasion but not in the mass.

There was no eulogy at my late maternal grandmother’s funeral rite at any time - visitation, Mass or even the burial. The priest made the remarks about the deceased during the homily at the Mass, and why the particular scriptures were chosen - they fit who she was as a person. It made things a lot easier as no one in my family considers themselves any form of public speaker.

 

[Rosebud77]

The only Catholic funerals I have attended, usually by accident, have been at the communiies I love to visit, Poor Clares and my good friends the Franciscan Friars. They are huge affairs and the crowds gather in the gardens when the Church is full.

Always the Bishop and several priests .

The big thing also here is the number of cars following the hearse. It is a kind of status symbol and often they have to send a Garda to control traffic. The first one I saw passing was over 60 cars long…

 

[Phemie]

I have to admit that I had never heard a eulogy at a Catholic funeral until around the late 90s. Still haven’t experienced one in the community where I grew up.

In the area where I’m living now there are so many mixed-marriages that Catholics are much more familiar with other religions’ traditions and often want to incorporate them into their weddings, funerals, etc. Eulogies are a big part of that, as are power-point presentations on a screen in the sanctuary and photo displays in the narthex.

From their own tradition they are big on having the Rosary recited at the funeral home but the Funeral Vigil was totally foreign to them until a few years ago even though the present Order of Christian Funerals dates back to 1990.

As for funeral processions from the home (we still have the occasional wake held in the home but it’s not common) or from the funeral home, it’s almost never done. We do have a procession from the church to the cemetery which is located about 1/2 mile away. None of the churches around here have their cemeteries on their grounds. There is a large common cemetery where each church has its own section to upkeep and bury its dead. Lately people have been buying two plots. They use one to bury a loved one and set up a visiting area with park bench and the like on the other one. I have to admit that I’m of the “keep it simple and easy to mow” school of cemeteries.

 

[Secant]

As a cantor, I have attended many funerals, and I have to say, most of them include a eulogy by a family member. I know they aren’t “technically” part of the Mass, but most people have that expectation. Probably because, that’s what they do on TV. I personally hate the custom. Grieving people should not be pressured to speak publically and some of the obnoxious things I’ve heard people share during these speeches would make your jaw drop!

Ditto! Some of the worst ones have been family members talking for 20-30 minutes about things that are against the teachings of the Catholic Church. The most recent one was a young man talking about how his father hadn’t entered a church for the past thirty years and how he didn’t really believe in Catholic teachings, but how he loved his neighbor so he was obviously in heaven, despite never going to Mass, not agreeing with the Church’s teachings about sin and death, and not finding any reason to worship God, just to acknowledge that God existed once in his life. We heard how he loved his grandkids and would help folks who needed it, but never about how he felt that his Church community was important, or how he should join his wife at Mass or teach his kids about God (things that were bragged that he didn’t do). I feel that is the best reason to NOT have eulogies at Mass. Even my fairly liberal priest who makes funeral Masses seem more like declarations of sainthood than prayers for the soul of the deceased was having trouble here.

 

[Bonnie]

Ditto! Some of the worst ones have been family members talking for 20-30 minutes about things that are against the teachings of the Catholic Church.

The worst example I experienced was at a friend’s funeral some years ago. Her Protestant brother got up and preached a Protestant, slightly anti-Catholic sermon for at least 20 minutes. I knew Alice wouldn’t have liked that at all.

The priest was a sweet man, but too polite to interrupt the brother. I think that’s why many priests now don’t let friends & family speak at the funeral - too many loose cannons.

 

[Phemie]

The worst example I experienced was at a friend’s funeral some years ago. Her Protestant brother got up and preached a Protestant, slightly anti-Catholic sermon for at least 20 minutes. I knew Alice wouldn’t have liked that at all.

The priest was a sweet man, but too polite to interrupt the brother. I think that’s why many priests now don’t let friends & family speak at the funeral - too many loose cannons.

The worst I’ve experienced was the son of a beloved parishioner. When his mother died the family was told by the recently arrived pastor that eulogies were not allowed so there would be no speaking of the deceased during Mass. Just after Communion the guy gets up, goes to the ambo and says, “We were told this was not to be done but I’m sure you won’t mind” and proceeds to speak for more than 20 minutes. I can’t for the life of me remember what he said but I do remember the waves of anger emanating from Father.