THE DIARY OF AN INNER-CITY PRIEST
Diary Entry #46:
The Laughing Ladies at the Funeral Home
I have witnessed many strange things during my years as a priest; so many strange things that it takes something particularly novel or extraordinary to stop me in my tracks. That happened to me recently as I was conducting a service at a funeral home.
Before proceeding, it will help to provide a little background on the current state of funerals in the Catholic Church. The situation may be the same in other denominations, but I know nothing of that. When I was first ordained, I was assigned to a very large suburban parish, which hosted at least one, and often more funerals each week. The order of the funeral liturgies was always the same: the wake service (technically known as the Vigil for the Deceased) was held at the funeral home the evening before the funeral Mass at the church on the following day. At the end of the Mass, the priest and mourners accompanied the casket to one of the local cemeteries and conducted the graveside prayers (also known as the Committal). Finally, family and friends would gather at a local restaurant for a repast. This format almost never varied, and over the course of my years at that parish I followed it hundreds of times.
Today, “funerals” almost never follow that format. The reasons for this are multiple. First, since most Catholics rarely attend Sunday Mass, they see no reason to bother attending one on the occasion of someone’s death. Second, most Catholics who rarely attend Mass don’t understand the funeral as an opportunity to offer the continuation of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross for the repose of the soul of the deceased. After all, if everyone who dies goes to heaven, what’s the point of prayer for the dead? Third, (the icing on the cake), funerals can be very expensive. Given the first two reasons, why waste money like that?
As a result of all this, most of the calls we receive for “funerals” these days are nothing more than requests to visit the funeral home for a few moments and “say a few prayers”. Rarely am I even acquainted with the deceased or the family since they don’t attend Mass. Once upon a time I declined these invitations because I believed that agreeing to these “services” would only encourage people to ignore the Church’s true Funeral Liturgy. I was right. Today, I understand that one of these “services” may be the only opportunity I get to preach the Gospel to a gathered group of people that I have never seen before and most likely will never see again. That brings me back to my story.
I showed up at the funeral home one Sunday afternoon and met (for the first time) the adult children of the deceased (whom I had not known). The funeral director asked the guests to be seated and I began the wake service. Having completed the Scripture readings and opening prayers, I noted that my “congregation” did not know how to respond to the readings and prayers; a sure sign that they did not attend Mass. Undeterred, I launched into a brief homily on the mystery of life and death in Christ.
I explained that at the moment we are conceived in our mother’s womb and begin to live in this world, we also begin to die to this world. The moment we enter, we begin our journey out. Our life in this world is a journey back to God. But, this does not happen automatically; death does not put us into heaven, grace does. The life of grace begins with baptism. After that, we are given the choice by God to stay in, and die in a state of grace, a state of communion with God, or not. The definition of heaven in the Catechism of the Catholic Church is essentially “communion with God”. If we die in communion with God, we will live in communion with God eternally. If we choose to die out of communion with God, there is no reason to suppose that death will reverse that free choice. I concluded with an exhortation to pray for the repose of the deceased’s soul, with the assurance that we at the parish would be doing so. I promised to add the deceased’s name to the list of those for whose souls we pray on Sundays. At that, an adult daughter of the deceased began to laugh aloud. Through her laughter she exclaimed, “Put her on the list! Ha!, Ha!” Immediately another woman began to laugh repeating, “Ha!, Ha! Put her on the list! Ha!, Ha!”
As I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, I was stopped in my tracks by this response. I could not understand what I had said that was humorous. I thought it would be reassuring to the family to know that we were praying for their loved one (even if they weren’t). Uncomfortably, I said my “goodbyes” and made my exit rather unceremoniously. My mind was reeling in an effort to understand what I had just experienced. On the drive home, I considered the possibilities.
Why had they asked me to come? Was I expected to pray for the repose of the deceased’s soul? Was I there to fulfill some sense of obligation on the part of the family to include a priest for the sake of propriety? Had I been expected to declare that the deceased is a saint in heaven? I am not the judge of the living and the dead. How could I know that? Maybe they laughed because, by promising to pray for her, I had touched upon some unpleasant family secret that, in the minds of the survivors, would require some serious prayer for the deceased to get her into heaven (Ha!, Ha!). I don’t know.
It has been said that the purpose of preaching is to afflict the comfortable, and to comfort the afflicted. My sense is that the “congregation” in the funeral home that day, probably raised as practicing Catholics, now evidently comfortably far from that practice, and even more comfortably further from reflection on the meaning of life and death in Christ, had been “afflicted”. Had I said something that had made sense, that had struck a chord, that had awakened in them a concern for their own salvation and for that of their deceased loved one? Was that the reason for what may have been “nervous” laughter? I don’t know. I can only hope so.
EL DIARIO DE UN SACERDOTE URBANO
Entrada de diario #46
Damas Burlonas en la Funeraria
Durante mis años de sacerdocio, he sido testigo de muchos acontecimientos extraños, y por lo tanto, muy pocas cosas me sorprenden, pero la historia que les contaré a continuación, me sacudió a tal punto que me hizo hacer un alto en el camino, e hizo que me detuviera a reflexionar que era lo que en realidad estaba pasando. Esto me sucedió recientemente cuando realizaba un servicio en una funeraria.
Antes de continuar, creo que es oportuno informarles el estado actual de los funerales en la Iglesia Católica. La situación puede ser la misma en otras denominaciones, pero eso yo no lo sé.
Al ser ordenado sacerdote, mi primera asignación fue en una parroquia suburbana bastante grande y en donde se llevaban a cabo gran cantidad de funerales, por lo menos uno por semana. El orden de las liturgias fúnebres era siempre el mismo: el velorio (técnicamente conocido como la Vigilia de los Difuntos) se celebraba en la funeraria la noche anterior a la Misa fúnebre que se celebraría en la iglesia el día siguiente.
Al final de la Misa, el sacerdote y los dolientes acompañaban el ataúd a uno de los cementerios locales en donde se hacían las oraciones pertinentes junto a la tumba (ceremonia antes del entierro). Finalmente, la familia y los amigos se reunían en un restaurante local para un almuerzo o cena. Este formato casi nunca varió, y durante mis años en esta parroquia, los celebré cientos de veces.
Hoy, los “funerales” casi nunca siguen ese formato. Las razones son muchas. En primer lugar, dado que la mayoría de los católicos rara vez asisten a Misa los domingos, no ven razón para molestarse en asistir a una misa fúnebre para honrar a un familiar o amigo. En segundo lugar, la mayoría de los católicos que rara vez asisten a Misa no entienden el funeral como una oportunidad para ofrecer la continuación del sacrificio de Cristo en la Cruz por el descanso del alma del difunto. Después de todo, si todos los que mueren van al cielo, ¿de qué sirve orar por los muertos? En tercer lugar, (“la cereza en el pastel” o sea la razón principal), los funerales pueden ser muy costosos. Dadas las dos primeras razones, ¿por qué gastar dinero de esa manera?
A raíz de todo esto, la mayoría de las llamadas de “funerales” que recibimos estos días no son más que solicitudes para visitar la funeraria unos momentos y “decir unas cuantas oraciones por el difunto”. Rara vez conozco al difunto o a la familia, ya que no asisten a Misa.
Una vez rechacé estas invitaciones porque creía que aceptar estos "servicios" solo alentaría a las personas a ignorar la verdadera liturgia fúnebre de la Iglesia. Yo tenía razón. Hoy, entiendo que uno de estos “servicios” puede ser la única oportunidad que tengo de predicar el Evangelio a un grupo de personas a las que nunca he visto antes y que probablemente nunca volveré a ver.
Volviendo a mi historia. Me presenté en la funeraria un domingo por la tarde y conocí (por primera vez) a los hijos adultos del difunto, (a quien tampoco tuve el gusto de conocer en vida). El director de la funeraria pidió a los invitados que se sentaran y comencé el servicio de velatorio.
Habiendo completado las lecturas de las Escrituras y las oraciones de apertura, noté que mi “congregación” no sabía cómo responder a las lecturas y oraciones; esto para mi era una señal segura de que no asistían a Misa.
