Funerals

And Jesus Wept . . .

     On this Fifth Sunday of Lent, when we heard the beautiful Gospel story of the raising of Lazarus, it brought me to reflect on the changing mourning process in our Church. In my area of the country, the funeral process consisted of a wake (usually two days of viewings, both afternoon and evening), and the fullness of the mourning process was done within the three stationary liturgies as prescribed by the Church. Usually the mourning ritual occurred over the course of three days or so, from the time of death to interment.

     These days, I have found the process to be ever-changing, and it seems the Church is in need of addressing these changes with an eye toward making adaptations that acknowledge this new reality. I will expand this further as we go along.

     Back “in the day” (as my wife likes to say), families were mostly of one faith, in our case, Catholic. There may be a couple of family members from outside the faith—usually through marriage—but for the most part everyone was Catholic. In my ministry as Director of Liturgy and Music at a large parish set among a number of retirement communities, I serve anywhere from 110 to 120 funerals per year. When once families at Catholic funerals were mostly practicing Catholics, this is sadly no longer the case. I am finding that, for the most part, families at funerals are mostly unchurched, and it is now common for less than half of the family to even identify as Catholic. While I say this not to judge anyone, it does however make for liturgy that can be unpredictable and difficult to minister. I know that much of this can be said about weddings as well, but I will address that in a later post. It also appears that the increase in unchurched and mixed-faith families has contributed to some of these changing practices. Let’s look at some of these changes (These may or may not apply in your part of the country.). Here is the funeral process as it was from the time of Vatican II through perhaps 10 years ago. Let’s consider a person’s death to be Day 1:

     Day 3: Wake at the funeral home, afternoon and evening viewings to receive mourners

     Day 4: Same, including the wake service led by a parish minister (usually a priest or deacon) during one of the viewings

     Day 5: Funeral Eucharist at the parish church with burial (interment) at a cemetery.

     Nowadays, there are a number of variations on this theme. Let’s look at some of them. Variation 1:

     Day 3: Wake at the funeral home, one viewing of 3–4 hours

     Day 4: Funeral Eucharist with burial.

     Rather than writing out all the possible variations, let’s just say that it often happens that a family will request a simple service in the funeral home instead of a Eucharist at church. This often happens in the case of an unchurched family, and I have even seen this happen in the case of a very active person who dies and whose children are unchurched, which I find to be very sad. This is why I encourage seniors in particular to make sure they make their wish known to their children that they want a full Catholic funeral at their passing.

     It also happens very often now that families opt for cremation rather than traditional burial. In 1992 the Church approved the inclusion of cremains at Catholic funerals, provided cremation was not done for reasons of denying the Resurrection. This, however, has created some unique pastoral challenges. Sometimes the deceased is cremated before the funeral Mass, and sometimes afterward. When done before and therefore present at Mass, the rites should be adapted to address the presence of an urn rather than a casket. In my parish, we always have someone carry the urn in and out in procession, the same way a casket would be processed. This helps to keep the funeral liturgy consistent, and helps address other liturgical issues as well.

     Sometimes the cremation is done after the funeral Mass. When this is the case, the dismissal, “Let us take our brother/sister to his/her place of rest.” makes no sense, as the family are not going to an interment but are dispersing while the body is going to the crematory. This disrupts the funeral process as it currently exists, and the Church has need to adapt the ritual for the reality. I realize the reciprocal can be legitimately argued, but the Church does allow for cremation, and therefore the ritual needs to be adapted.

     It also happens that a funeral is now celebrated the day after a death, but does this really allow a family the necessary time to begin the mourning process?

     While there is indeed fine-tuning to be done in our funeral process, our Catholic mourning process, when done in its fullness, is one that is beautiful, providing the bereaved with comfort and consolation, as well as an opportunity to give their beloved back to God.