Sister officiates a memorial service

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This from an obituary in the Corning Leader (Corning, NY), Oct. 21, 2004:

A Memorial Service will be held Saturday, Oct. 23, 2004, at 11:00 A.M. at St. Gabriel’s Church, in Hammondsport with Sister Margaret Kunder officiating

St. Gabriels is a Catholic church. Margaret Kunder is a Sister of St. Joseph.

Am I right to shudder?
 
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kmmd:
This from an obituary in the Corning Leader (Corning, NY), Oct. 21, 2004:

A Memorial Service will be held Saturday, Oct. 23, 2004, at 11:00 A.M. at St. Gabriel’s Church, in Hammondsport with Sister Margaret Kunder officiating

St. Gabriels is a Catholic church. Margaret Kunder is a Sister of St. Joseph.

Am I right to shudder?
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Not necessarily. It says that it will be a Memorial Service, not a Mass. It is increasingly common that funeral services are conducted by lay people, because of the shortage of priests. In my home parish, there are 3 or 4 lay people who conduct funeral services when necessary.
 
get used to it, get it through your heads there are not enough priests to officiate at weddings, funerals and baptisms or to visit the sick. Those duties are usually done by deacons, and if no deacon is available, the good sisters can conduct a communion service, or a prayer service such as at a funeral home, but of course cannot legally witness weddings, nor baptize (outside of emergency circumstances). Most hospital chaplains are now sisters or deacons, who of course cannot anoint the sick, which forgives sin a privilege reserved to priests. They can and do pray with, comfort the sick and bring holy communion, but most good lifelong Catholics die without amointing because there are not enough priests.

It is only going to get worse. There are more priests at or above SS retirement age than under.
PRAY FOR VOCATIONS
 
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puzzleannie:
get used to it, get it through your heads there are not enough priests to officiate at weddings, funerals and baptisms or to visit the sick. Those duties are usually done by deacons, and if no deacon is available, the good sisters can conduct a communion service, or a prayer service such as at a funeral home, but of course cannot legally witness weddings, nor baptize (outside of emergency circumstances). Most hospital chaplains are now sisters or deacons, who of course cannot anoint the sick, which forgives sin a privilege reserved to priests. They can and do pray with, comfort the sick and bring holy communion, but most good lifelong Catholics die without amointing because there are not enough priests.

It is only going to get worse. There are more priests at or above SS retirement age than under.
PRAY FOR VOCATIONS
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Unfortunately our diocese has the distintiction of the fewest number or ordinations in 2004. Exactly one. In 1994 we had a diocesean synod and almost every parish listed the shortage of vocations as their number one concern. When it got to Rochester, that concern was refined as “The role of womein in the church”. Our pastor at the time said the group was “moved by the Holy Spirit”

I guess we got what we asked for
 
I kinda have mixed emotions about it. My diocese is not particularly short on priests (that I’m aware of). But women conduct services anyway for various reasons.

When my first son died, my priest baptized him (before he died), but when it came to the memorial service at the burial, he asked that the hospital chaplain (a woman) conduct the ceremony because (and he was being honest I think) he was rather upset by the death and wouldn’t be able to talk.

Anyway, it went well, and she was very reverent, and since no sacrament was being administered, I didn’t have a problem with it.
 
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puzzleannie:
get used to it, get it through your heads there are not enough priests to officiate at weddings, funerals and baptisms or to visit the sick. Those duties are usually done by deacons, and if no deacon is available, the good sisters can conduct a communion service, or a prayer service such as at a funeral home, but of course cannot legally witness weddings, nor baptize (outside of emergency circumstances).
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Keep in mind that this is the Latin Church as a deacon can not preside at Weddings or Baptisms in the Byzantine Churches.
Most hospital chaplains are now sisters or deacons, who of course cannot anoint the sick, which forgives sin a privilege reserved to priests. They can and do pray with, comfort the sick and bring holy communion, but most good lifelong Catholics die without amointing because there are not enough priests.
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Understand that this is the secular definition of chaplain. The Church, in Canon Law, spells out that a chaplain must be a priest.

Can. 564 A chaplain is a priest to whom is entrusted in a stable manner the pastoral care, at least in part, of some community or special group of Christ’s faithful, to be exercised in accordance with universal and particular law.
 
Great discussion and good answers. Some feel that lay persons had grown lazy, content to let just Ordained people preside over services, teach religion, Etc. So God in his infinite wisdom allows vocations to decrease, that the lay persons will share in the work of the “Body of Christ” and the missionary mandate that each baptized Catholic has.

God bless,
Deacon Tony SFO
 
Deacon Tony560:
Great discussion and good answers. Some feel that lay persons had grown lazy, content to let just Ordained people preside over services, teach religion, Etc. So God in his infinite wisdom allows vocations to decrease, that the lay persons will share in the work of the “Body of Christ” and the missionary mandate that each baptized Catholic has.

God bless,
Deacon Tony SFO
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That sounds almost evil. I remember when Roger Mahony exclaimed that one of the “fruits” of V2 was just that – getting the laity more involved by decreasing the number of priests.

Chilling.
 
God works in strange ways. Remember in the Old Testament, King Cyrus allowed the Jewish people to go home and practice their faith. He was a pagan. Fr. Corapi has a great saying that God permits evil for the greater good that comes out of it.

May God bless you,
Deacon Tony SFO
 
Deacon Tony560:
God works in strange ways. Remember in the Old Testament, King Cyrus allowed the Jewish people to go home and practice their faith. He was a pagan. Fr. Corapi has a great saying that God permits evil for the greater good that comes out of it.

May God bless you,
Deacon Tony SFO
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Yes, that is why God let the TLM be put into disuse. But one day, just like the Jews return to their traditional worship, so shall he also let us Catholics return to our Traditional Worship, the TLM
 
Shortage of priests or not, when I die my family members had better make sure that I have a proper funeral - with a funeral Mass - or I’ll come back and haunt them!! :mad:

It is one thing to have a funeral service conducted by a lay person, but I have seen funeral services conducted by a priest. I just cannot understand that one! :confused: If the priest is available, why wasn’t there a
Mass? That was the case when my mother-in-law died. My sister-in-law made all the arrangements (M-i-l was living with her). I found the whole thing very lacking! 😦
 
Joan M:
Shortage of priests or not, when I die my family members had better make sure that I have a proper funeral - with a funeral Mass - or I’ll come back and haunt them!! :mad:
😦
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Not only do I want a priest, but I also want a body. I have been to so many wakes with no body, only an urn. It started with my mother-in-law who thought that if she was cremated it would save us money (money is not an issue in this family) I fought to make them wait until after the wake but it was no go. Then when my father in law died, he said “what ever Mom said” so they did the same thing. They were both in their 70’s…you should of seen the look on their long time friends, looking around the room for a casket. At least at Dad’s wake I got them to put in a kneeler and a crucifix near the urn. These folks never missed a Mass until they were too sick. I took Dad for a long time, while he could still walk…he had alzheimers.

Anyway more than any of that, I want them to cry and to pray for me. Please! no celebration funerals, you may think that I’m going right to heaven, and I am hopeful to end up there eventually, but I know myself too well, and they all know me well enough to know that I am no saint. If I get the chance, like if someday I know death is approaching, I hope to know a priest to ask to make sure that all happens.

Hopefully there will a priest living within driving distance.
 
Joan M:
It is one thing to have a funeral service conducted by a lay person, but I have seen funeral services conducted by a priest. I just cannot understand that one! :confused: If the priest is available, why wasn’t there a
Mass? That was the case when my mother-in-law died. My sister-in-law made all the arrangements (M-i-l was living with her). I found the whole thing very lacking! 😦
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Joan,

I wouldn’t presume to know all of the circumstances surrounding your mother in law’s service, but I can speak from my recent experience.

Last April 27, my sister died of breast cancer and the age of 37. In my family, my father and my stepmother converted to the Church about eight years ago, and I had just been baptized and confirmed into the church a couple weeks prior on Easter. When we knew my sister’s end was near, we asked my brother in law if he minded uf calling a priest in to offer what he could. Since she was not Catholic, and she was parlyzed and unable to talk, the preist was only able to councel her, and give what he called a conditional absolution. Since the family was unclear on whether she had been baptized in a church she attended for a while as a kid, and she shook her head when the priest asked if she wanted to be baptized, but some of the family was convinced she already was, and she was saying she didn’t need to be baptized.

Anyway, the newly ordained priest at my parish came and officiated at the memorial service for my sister, at the request of my brother in law. Even though my brother in law and my sister weren’t churgoing christians, they felt strongly in a belief in God and Jesus, and wanted a religious ceremony. The priest was able to get dispensation from the Archdiocese.( Necessary when a priest is performing services for non-Catholics), and performed a beautiful ceremony. It roughly resembled a mass, but of course did not include communion. By that, I mean that there were three readings, their was a responsorial psalm, the priest gave a homily, etc. It wasn’t, though, able to be a complete funeral mass, because she wasn’t Catholic.

I was pleased to see that after the memorial service, in the conversations going on in the reception, that noone seemed to have any complaints, and almost everyone was very happy with the service that Father Lou Delfra gave. And, on my brother in law’s side of the family, his brother and sister in law are Jewish, some friends of my sister are Buddhist, some of my family is Seventh Day Adventist and others are Free Methodist, and many more denominations were represented in the mix of friends and family that came to show respect. Even my older brother, being rather strongly against organized religion at all, and pretty much an atheist, had good words for the service.
 
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katolik:
Yes, that is why God let the TLM be put into disuse. But one day, just like the Jews return to their traditional worship, so shall he also let us Catholics return to our Traditional Worship, the TLM
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It wasn’t put into “disuse”. The rite was changed.
 
Just a couple of thoughts here. In the Catholic tradition there are three services that are generally associated with the funeral process. The first is the Vigil service (sometimes called a Wake). Prior to Vatican II this was normally a time to pray the rosary in the presence of the deceased’s body. Today this is a more involved service with readings from Scripture, a homily, and prayers that the Church has given to us. This is probably the service being mentioned above, and it is normally done the night before the funeral Mass. As a deacon I frequently do these Vigil services as it leaves our priests free to serve the needs of the parish (we have some 4300 families registered in my Latin parish).

The second service is normally the Funeral Mass and this is, of course, presided over by a priest or bishop.

The final service is the graveside service which consists of blessing the grave (if it has not already been blessed. e.g., a Catholic cemetery) and prayers. This is another service that is frequently presided over by deacons (because of the blessing of the grave).

In many parishes the Vigil service is led by lay persons, and the Church permits this.

Deacon Ed
 
get used to it, get it through your heads there are not enough priests to officiate at weddings
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HOG WASH!

There are plenty of Traditional Catholic priest out there and there numbers are growing faster than any other order combined. In fact, the FSSP is so packed that they have to turn priest away. Basically, the young people are not interested in the Novus Ordo way of doing things.

Facts are hard to argue against.

Visit the seminary websites for yourself:
fssp.org/en/seminaireD.htm

For a detailed analysis please go here:
seattlecatholic.com/article_20040119.html

Here is a graph showing the increase of Traditional Catholic vocations:
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
A second set of data would be the Conservative orders like Mother Angelicas EWTN. According to information provided by EWTN they are beyond full capacity.

Conclusion, if the order wears a traditional habit or says the Latin Mass then vocations are up. If however, the order is in the “spirit of Vatican II” then vocations are down and the order is dying.
 
I’ve attended a couple of funeral Masses in my life but since I’m a convert I had never been exposed to the “full process”. One year ago when my father in law passed on and I of course was involved in the whole process.

It went as Deacon Ed stated. The memorial service the night before the funeral was conducted by a Nun and included readings and the Rosary. There was a full Mass at the church for the funeral as well as a graveside service the next day. This happened in a small rural Missouri community. Until I read this post I thought this was normal.

Later, when the son of a co-worker passed on here in Indiana they did the same thing only the Priest conducted the memorial service as well as the funeral Mass the next day.

The only difference I see is that in both of these examples the memorial service was held at the funeral homes.

Steve
 
I wouldn’t presume to know all of the circumstances surrounding your mother in law’s service, but I can speak from my recent experience.
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Why I was not happy with this is because my mother in law was a life-long Catholic. So is my sister-in-law. Since the priest was available, I just cannot understand why there was no funeral Mass. This really bothered me, but, since there was tension between me and my s-i-l already, I did not address it with her. My husband could not understand, either, why no funeral Mass for his mother.

The description of the various services for the dead by Deacon Ed is exactly what I would have expected, and what I want for myself and my loved ones.

If the Parish Priest is not available, (and we usually have only one priest in a parish) I would expect my husband (in the case of my death) to approach other priest(s) to do his best to ensure that there would be a funeral Mass.
 
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