Death of a funeral tradition
A RELATION of mine rang me a number of years ago. She mentioned that she’d been at a funeral in the UK a few days previously.
“God, funerals are awful here,” she mused. “Quick, sterile, hardly anyone there, and just so cold. They may complain about Catholic Ireland but the Catholic Church knows how to celebrate a life.”
She wasn’t talking about the famed whiskey-drenched wakes of Ireland but of the curious Irish cultural phenomenon whereby you attend a person’s funeral even if you don’t know the deceased. You may only know their son or daughter, or even only work with their brother or sister, but you attend their funeral as a mark of respect.
She was also talking about how, in Ireland, you’ll see a man’s grandchildren bring his much-loved fishing rod up to altar as part of the offertory procession, a hurley to mark his love of GAA and his county, and even a well-thumbed copy of the Racing Post to show his love of the horses.
She was also talking about eulogies: Sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes cringe-worthy and entirely, awkwardly inappropriate, but often a tribute to the love, life, and laughter of an everyday, un-extraordinary life.
Funeral eulogies can also be rare thing: A moment in time where a person’s life is contemplated and where notions of life, death, and spirituality are contemplated by the people in the pews.
What is the point of it all? What matters ambition and secular achievement? Surely it’s having brought a family into the world, having loved selflessly and having been loved that matters? They’re all thoughts that have run through my head as I sat at the funerals of everyone from 90-year-old men who reached the apex of their profession to others who just limped along from week to week. They’re not thoughts that normally preoccupy me but funeral Masses breed such contemplation.
However, now we have been told that we’ve been doing it all wrong, that eulogies are in fact contrary to the Catholic tradition and that even referring to the dead person being in heaven is canonically wrong. Only the Church has the authority to do this, which is in effect canonisation.
As Father James Field wrote in the US Catholic: “Contrary to common assumption, the purpose of the funeral Mass is not to celebrate the life of the deceased but to offer worship to God for Christ’s victory over death, to comfort the mourners with prayers, and to pray for the soul of the deceased.
“Relatives or friends who wish to speak of the deceased’s character and accomplishments can do so at a prayer service to be held in a home or funeral home or at the graveside following the rite of committal.”
In a directive issued last week to his priests by the Bishop of Meath, Dr Michael Smith decreed just that: ”Appreciations or eulogies by family members or friends of the deceased should not take place in the Church.”
He also banned secular songs “devoid of a Christian content”.
“A post-Communion reflection of a prayerful nature can be given after Communion but this should be agreed beforehand with the Celebrant and should not be used as a cloak for a eulogy,” he said.
My parents’ generation often found refuge in the Church. In times of great distress, they found solace in saying a quick prayer in the solemnity of a quiet church.
Many of my generation have lost that. But Church ceremonies, whether they were baptisms, communions, or funerals, still have a lingering cultural importance in Ireland.
Bishop Smith may very well be pointing out what has long been Catholic law, but it will be read by many as another unintended attempt to ossify the Church, to place it back on the pedestal from which is has so ungraciously fallen and, consequently, to extricate it from the family life and community of which it claims it should be the heart.
IN recent years, we’ve had the reintroduction of the Latin Mass, a refusal by priests to allow folk and non-religious songs be played at weddings, and the warning from the Apostolic Visitation that novice priests should be kept at a remove from other students in Maynooth.
All of this is happening at a time when the Church is still reeling from the abuse cover-up, when vocations are dangerously low, and when Mass attendance is ever lower.
A survey of more than 1,000 third-level students, published today, found that two thirds believe religion does not make the world a better place.
Only three in eight said they believed in God, and less than two thirds identified as Catholics.
The Church is Christ’s home but surely the whole message of Christ also lives on in the banal: The life stories, the lives well-lived, the family anecdotes, the laughter, the human frailty.
Christ’s overriding message is one of love and to love but, for many of my generation, that message has been lost.
The Church has become obsessed with its edicts, its power, with its traditions.
Instead of finding new ways to spread Christ’s message once again, the hierarchy appear to be turning inwards rather than reaching out.
Statement from Bishop of Meath Micheal Smith:
Following a discussion at the last meeting of the Council of Priests, I agreed to write to priests in the late summer on our diocesan practice in relation to panegyrics and eulogies at funeral Masses.
In a book entitled Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life by the then Cardinal Ratzinger, he quotes, with approval, a phrase of the theologian Joseph Pieper, who summed up the modern approach to death as “the materialistic trivialisation of death”. Ratzinger, in this context, writes: “Death is to be deprived of its character as a place where the metaphysical breaks through. Death is rendered banal so as to quell the unsettling questions that arise from it.”
The funeral liturgy is a prayer of petition for the deceased, a prayer commending the deceased to God’s tender mercy and compassion, a prayer rooted in the hope engendered by the death and resurrection of Christ.
In the directives for the funeral Mass, it is stated: “A brief homily, based on the readings, should always be given at the funeral liturgy, but never any kind of eulogy. The homilist should dwell on God’s compassionate love and on the paschal mystery of the Lord proclaimed in the scripture readings.”
All priests are asked to uphold the integrity of the funeral Mass and funeral rites. A dumbing-down of their integrity does no service to the faith. If family members or others wish to speak about the deceased, this can be done at the graveside or when the family and friends gather after the burial.
The following regulations are to be followed at all funerals:
*Appreciations or eulogies by family members or friends of the deceased should not take place in the church but may take place after the Rite of Committal in the cemetery or when the family and friends gather;
*The ambo [lecturn] is for the proclamation of the word of God;
*Readings at the funeral liturgy should be taken from the lectionary;
*Secular songs, poems, and texts devoid of a Christian content are out of place in the funeral liturgy;
*A post-Communion reflection of a prayerful nature can be given after Communion but this should be agreed beforehand with the celebrant and should not be used as a cloak for a eulogy.
*As is clear from the directives on the funeral rite, the deceased should not be canonised in the homily;
*If a visiting priest is officiating at the funeral Mass, he should be informed of these regulations and asked to abide by them;
*It is important that undertakers in your area are aware of these regulations. It is also important that clear arrangements are in place on the signing of books of condolence. Some priests expressed the view that they should not be allowed in the Church;
*Clear arrangements, allowing people the opportunity to offer sympathy to the family of the deceased, should be put in place in each parish;
*In some places, it seems that the ‘funeral planner’ has made an appearance. Priests should only engage with the family in relation to the funeral rite.
