I read recently how standardized and uniform Catholic funerals can be, that they can be true cookie-cutter rites. Just plug in the name and keep the Mass to a prescribed time. I was reminded of my sheer disappointment some years back attending the funeral Mass of a Tempe friend who had some prominence and who had lived a fulfilled, dynamic, significant life.But it could have been just about anybody’s funeral. The substance of his rich life was omitted. I knew people who had intended to speak to exalt him, but were told no. I wrote the church and complained. No response. Others told me that it is just the Catholic way. Dust to dust. All the dead are to be viewed in the same light. The deceased are not to be celebrated. All glory to God.
James Hitchcock, a Catholic author and a history professor at St. Louis University, has written about the appropriateness of eulogies at Catholic funerals.
“When I was growing up,” he said, I attended hundreds of funerals, as a server and a choir boy. All them were in the same church, most of them conducted by the same priest, who year after year preached the same sermon, which was to remind the mourners that they, too, would die and should be prepared to do so, and to urge them to pray for the soul of the deceased. What more needed to be said?
Hitchcock quoted an archbishop who believed eulogies detract from the Mass itself and are often seen as the real center of the liturgy. In the process the Christian meaning of death is obscured.
I couldnt disagree more.
Hitchcock lamented that so many non-practicing Catholics don’t grasp the mystery of the funeral and just want a memory-lane hour for the dead. The funeral is no longer a divine mystery but is merely a ceremony to remember the deceased and help the living cope with their loss, he said. It ceases to have any supernatural meaning, except in the purely sentimental insistence that the deceased is in heaven.
Recently my church made a big push for its members to fill out paperwork for the files to spell out end-of-life wishes. Matters included where we wanted our funerals (mortuary or church, casket or memorial service, etc.), scriptures to be read, preferred hymns to be sung and other matters related to the funeral. Members were asked to cite their organizational affiliations and provide a reasonable summary on their lives to be used by pastors in eulogies and tributes. I got the project done by deadline, but my “life’s story” is unfinished in the computer. But I expect to live past age 90 and funerals may then not even resemble todays rites.
Still, let me go to funerals where we survivors and friends come to intimately know more, where stories are freely told and memories shared. Those services that dwells entirely on scripture and religious homily and the usual formality leave me unsatisfied and cold.
Mr. Griffiths,
Interesting blog post - thank you.
As a Catholic, I’d like to take the opportunity to quickly reflect on the Catholic understanding of the purpose of the funeral Mass. The funeral Mass is the time to commend the deceased to God, to remind the Faithful of their obligation, in Christian charity, to pray for the deceased, to remind the Faithful of the shortness of life, and like all Masses, to worship God. Our Catechism even gives us the following guidance on the selection of Biblical readings and homiletic subject matter:
“The liturgy of the Word during funerals demands very careful preparation because the assembly present for the funeral may include some faithful who rarely attend the liturgy, and friends of the deceased who are not Christians. The homily in particular must ‘avoid the literary genre of funeral eulogy’ and illumine the mystery of Christian death in the light of the risen Christ.” (paragraph 1688)
The appropriate place for a “formal”, if you will, remembrance of the deceased that is personalized to them and their families, is the wake prior to the funeral and, as is common here, any social gathering afterwards. The Mass, whether on the occasion of a funeral or not, is not really the place for creativity and personalization.
Having lost close family members in the past few years, I’ve found the wisdom of the Church here to be very comforting - keeping the creative out of the funeral Mass was the best for those of us who were grieving.
I very much enjoy reading your blog - thanks for the thought provoking posts!