Funerals
Alan29
Shipmate
I have been playing at a number of them lately, or to be more precise, requiems. Several thoughts arise that shipmates might like to comment on.
We have Requiems where the intent and texts pray for foregiveness of the deceased sins and and their eternal rest. The intent is specific, it is more than a memorial service or "celebration of life." Booklets that call the event a Celebration of Life seem to go with services that are anything but celebratory.
Next, Eulogies. What is to be done about them? They are often hagiographic, too long and say little about what the deceased was actually like as a person. Do your places provide guidelines? They might be helpful. Some RC dioceses ban them from church and suggest they are best kept for the wake. Then does what is left feel too impersonal?
Finally music. The rule is, no secular music and no recorded music at services. A visiting priest allowed a recording of Lets Twist Again as the coffin was entering the Church. It was the deceased favourite song. The congregation stood in stunned silence. It was wildly inappropriate.
We have Requiems where the intent and texts pray for foregiveness of the deceased sins and and their eternal rest. The intent is specific, it is more than a memorial service or "celebration of life." Booklets that call the event a Celebration of Life seem to go with services that are anything but celebratory.
Next, Eulogies. What is to be done about them? They are often hagiographic, too long and say little about what the deceased was actually like as a person. Do your places provide guidelines? They might be helpful. Some RC dioceses ban them from church and suggest they are best kept for the wake. Then does what is left feel too impersonal?
Finally music. The rule is, no secular music and no recorded music at services. A visiting priest allowed a recording of Lets Twist Again as the coffin was entering the Church. It was the deceased favourite song. The congregation stood in stunned silence. It was wildly inappropriate.
Comments
The general atmosphere was of great sadness. The music jarred against that.
At the beginning of every funeral he meets the bearer party at the churchyard gate and reads The Sentences until they reach the porch door, whereupon I'm given a signal to bring the music to a close and the final Sentence is read after the coffin has been placed on the trestles.
Eulogies - most are overlong and the standard is variable. We try to limit to 10 minutes, and suggest that if a much longer tribute is desired they should print it on separate paper to be inserted into the Order of Service.
All our funerals have a brief sermon, and all have at least one Bible reading. However, the desire for secular readings can be a mixed bag.
By-and-large we have circumvented the trend for secular music at the end because the cleric of choice likes to read the words of the Nunc dimittis as he leads the coffin out. Previously we have had the full horror-show from Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye, Always look on the bright side of life, and Arthur Brown's Fire (and yes, that was a service before cremation) to Britney Spears singing Toxic. If the family don't specify then I tend to play something like O rest in the Lord or other appropriate whiffle*.
We have now started a funeral wishes scheme for worshippers where they can deposit with the Parish Office an outline of what they would wish to have at their funeral.
{*Organists' whiffle = suitable filling-in, often improvised, at funerals often referencing the deceased and their interests.]
Beautiful, but a bit spooky somehow.
Yes. A much-loved Occupational Health Nurse, who died at the age of 48, was also a talented singer. She was a long time a-dying, but was able to record a couple of songs, which were duly played as her coffin was carried from the church.
I was myself so choked up by this time that I can't recall what the songs were, but there was barely a dry eye in the house...
I mean, this is ridiculous. Wake up and smell the 21st century. Or the 20th even. Most people don't surround themselves with live, religious music, and there's no reason to dictate that funerals only have live, religious music.
The service should be whatever works best for the mourners and be appropriate for the deceased. Prescribing only sacred music for someone who found all hymns to be dreary would be flat wrong. A funeral is one of the few times outside Christmas and Easter when you could get a bunch of people in the church who seldom or never attend services. It should be meaningful for the people gathered, not designed around the tastes and preferences of the people conducting it.
A friend who is a retired priest was once asked to lead an informal off-site funeral service for a biker, someone who had had a tangential but real relationship to the parish. He said he took some appropriate language from the prayer book, and everyone in the small circle shared some memories of the deceased. At the end someone got out a flask and passed it around, and when it came to the priest, he drank and passed it to the next person -- he said he recognized communion when he saw it.
It does seem unduly restrictive, although I recall a former Anglican priest in this Diocese (he later joined the Ordinariate) fulminating publicly about the popularity of My Way, and other similar ditties, at funerals...his wrath was reported in various national papers...
The last funeral I conducted before my retirement was that of JT, a long-term member of Our Place. He left no detailed instructions as to the service, which was held in church (it wasn't a Funeral Mass), but his daughters and I agreed on a couple of hymns, and a recording of Roger Whittaker singing The Last Farewell, during which the coffin and family left the building.
That song was, it seems, one of JT's favourites, and thus wholly appropriate.
BTW, one of the daughters wrote a very good short eulogy, which she asked me to read. I quite enjoyed doing do, and it was so well written that it even produced some laughter from the assembled family and friends...
It was the hottest day of that summer (2018), and I recall standing by the graveside in my C of E vesture of cassock, cotta, and Blue Scarf, not feeling all that well, but thinking how cool and welcoming the grave appeared...
If you want a funeral in an Orthodox Church you have what is prescibed in the service book. There is no provision for musical "optional extras". Eulogies, however, are another matter . . .
Is it? If churches have defined liturgies, rubrics, norms and rules, why can't people who want some kind of memorial service outside of those bounds have it someplace else?
Previous priest had a strict rule about eulogies (there isn't one), and I'm rather sympathetic to that point of view. A sermon at a funeral may naturally draw from the example of the recently deceased, but the focus is on God, and not on what a great person the deceased was.
My preference is to have the funeral, which is fundamentally an act of Christian worship, and then have a wake, at which we can all eat and drink and tell stories of the deceased.
They can, and the church becomes increasingly irrelevant to their lives and to society in general. Churches that put their liturgies, rubrics, norms and rules ahead of serving people deserve to die.
In the “under no circumstances” list of things are eulogies/remembrances. The notes say “Stories can be told another time, over food and drink.” (Also on the “under no circumstances” list is use of the phrase “celebration of life.”)
I found the process of putting those instructions and notes together to be a surprisingly spiritual exercise.
Meanwhile, in Presbyterian churches, rules or guidelines about things like what music is permitted or the like are decisions for a congregation’s Session and ministers. Some congregations have written policies, while others may deal with things on a case-by-case basis. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered straight-up secular songs in a church funeral.
*Those who know me well and who’ve seen these instructions would laugh at “detailed.” And with very good reason, I’ll readily admit. It is something of an understatement.
I’ll add that my instructions also include: So I hope I’ve given them what they need to be able to say “It’s what he would have wanted,” as well as permission to do something else if that’s what they need to do.
People who want/expect churches to cater to every secular whim imaginable have already rendered anything that made it "church" irrelevant. Let them rent out a bar or hotel conference room.
Maybe churches with strict liturgical rules should offer a range of styles. I have played at far too many requiems where no family members went to communion or even went for a blessing when invited.
On bans etc, the phrase about the Sabbath being made for man comes to mind.
This.
We are there to be with those who are mourning the deceased. When the funeral includes music meaningful to them (whether secular or religious doesn’t matter), perhaps a poem, and a eulogy which includes an anecdote or two which reminds people of who s/he was, those gathered are more likely to bond and to remember the service with good feelings than if they have religion thrust upon them and a denial of what they require.
I advise the families to write a eulogy of around 5 minutes which everyone inputs to, rather than having several which repeat each other. I offer to read it if a family member doesn’t want to, and I’m on standby on the day in case they are too upset to read it. They are usually happy with this.
I never include a confession or a sermon, other than a few words about the love of God. The liturgy says it all.
I did have to insist that prayers and liturgy be included when someone asked to leave them out of a service in church, however. I have pointed people toward secular celebrants if they don’t want any mention of God.
They should, and they do. It's the people who feel church is appropriate for a funeral and do want some religious content that we're talking about.
It used to be part of my job to book both weddings and funerals at a church, and once a prospective bride asked me, "Does the minister have to talk about God?" The tone of my response was probably a bit severe. And we got a fair number of couples getting married who cared more about aesthetics than religion. But my experience while working over 20 years in a church office was that if non-members called up looking for a funeral or memorial service, they were nearly always calling because in some way they felt like a religious service was appropriate.
The retired priest who was officiating had not checked with the sister regarding her eulogy (an odd omission on his part - he is a very experienced and good pastor), but managed to discreetly bring the anguished outpourings to a close...
His own address was necessarily greatly shortened, and the prayers I was supposed to lead were omitted altogether, but we managed to get the service done within the measly 20 minutes or so allowed by the crematorium slot.
The late arrival of the hearse (an en route puncture!) didn't help...
Fortunately, the Family possesses a GSOH, and the widower still chuckles at the memory of the service to this day.
Well, it is just the tune for Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us jazzed up.
That's brilliant!
Now I've seen/ heard it, I will always smile when I sing that hymn.
https://youtu.be/1m_ysiV4uVY?feature=shared
Could lead to interesting conundrums when Liverpool supporting 1960s-era Liverpool policemen die, certainly.
There is a thriving Roman Catholic church near here that's known for its Latin Masses and is run by a religious order. When a Requiem is done for someone (or All Souls, etc.), that's an entirely defined thing. The texts and chants (if sung) go ahead like well-oiled machinery. I was asked to join their schola for one particular Requiem on a Saturday, it was one of a series of sung ones, and there was no special planning or eulogy; it just happened and was rather beautiful. The chant folio for the singers had the items from the Liber Usualis along with notes about when to start each bit, what the priest did/said between them, and how to know when to stop adding verses to the Communion psalm and wrap it up with the Requiem aeternam verse and antiphon.
I rather liked it (put would prefer English) and wouldn't mind if this were done for me. No need to talk about me except to pray for the repose of my soul.
I'm guessing that the silences were rather awkward for those not at all used to such things...
Having been to one myself, I can vouch for that.
Not only that, but people were very reluctant to stand up and speak, not helped by the fact that we were in a Crem with ranks of pews rather than a Meeting House.
The memorial Meeting they had later was much better organised.
I went to one (well, not an actual funeral but a memorial service) and found the awkwardness lay in anxiety that people (including myself) might say the wrong things or not all the right things. The silence was fine (but I'm an introvert and used to retreats).
As for more conventional funerals, the more structured and less bespoke the better as far as I am concerned. As a pastor I would aim to be sensitive to the bereaveds' wishes, but the objective structure of the liturgy is a way of holding together many strong emotions which can take over if there is less of a framework, and I would gently point this out to them.
This, on both counts.
The last funeral at which I officiated was very much a compromise - the family wanted virtually nothing religious, despite their father (the Deceased) having been an active Christian and a fine chorister for most of his long life.
We eventually agreed on a fairly minimalist liturgy in church - the traditional opening sentences, a short Bible reading, a hymn, a prayer, and a eulogy written by one of the daughters, but read by me. Incense and Holy Water were used once the coffin was in place, this being an Anglo-Catholic parish...
The Burial in the local cemetery was accompanied by that lovely prayer from the BCP which begins *Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God...*, entirely appropriate for a man who was brought up, so to speak, on the BCP and (later) the English Missal.
Though I say it as shouldn't, it all hung together well, and the Family did take the trouble to thank both me and my assistant (Madam Sacristan).
*Well, sort of. They're scheduled at half-hourly intervals, with the 00 and 30 slots in Chapel A, and the 15 and 45 slots in Chapel B, because of congestion... What with getting people in and out, there's usually only 20 minutes left for the service itself.
Just awful.
The priest was no help. Gabbled through the prayers. Gave no guidance to the congregation about what was going on, didnt greet the mourners by name at the start. Made a hash of the end so the pall bearers had to hot-foot it down the aisle to the coffin.
A wretched affair. The poeple must have gone away with a terrible impression of us.
Excuse my ignorance, but does the RC Church have a non-eucharistic funeral liturgy that could be used if the family of the deceased is not especially religious (or RC)?
I am doing a Bible reading, his beautiful 16 year old son is by choice, if he can manage it reading a poem- someone else is on standby just in case.
Three friends are doing the eulogy, friends are also carrying his coffin into the church.
There will be hymns.
The funeral is at the church his widow attends- he stopped attending church regularly years ago.
If I have the strength I will report back afterwards.