Wondering what to make of life before the Necessary End

Just in case anyone is in an doubt: I do *not* want a church funeral.

May anyone who organizes such a thing rot in hell (which I don’t believe in, but obviously someone organizing a church funeral for me does believe in hell, so my wish is not illogical).

And what brought this on? A charming little piece from Archbishop Dennis Hart of the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne. He issued new Guidelines for Catholic Funerals, which was reported here and here and lots of other places.

Much of the reporting concerned footy songs. I don’t care a whit about that. What I care about is this, from the guidelines:

The Parish Priest or the priest or deacon designated to celebrate a funeral determines the content and form of the funeral liturgy. The wishes of the deceased, family and friends should be taken into account, with pastoral kindness and consideration. But in planning the liturgy, the celebrant should moderate any tendency to turn the funeral into a secular celebration of the life of the deceased.

Whose show is this? If wishes of neither the deceased nor the living family and friends is to win the day, then this is an event for, and by, the church. Fine. If the church wants to organize something on its own because I died, then fine. Have one on your own. Without me. Or my friends and family whose wishes are merely to be “taken into account”.

Hart goes on:

A Catholic funeral is not “A celebration of the life of Mary Brown” or “A Memorial Service for Mary Brown”. These designations should never appear in media announcements or on the booklet.

However, celebrating memories of the life of deceased may be carried out:

• the night before the funeral, either at the funeral parlour, or before the vigil or rosary in the church – if permitted by the Parish Priest;
• in a separate moment before the Mass or a Liturgy of the Word begins – if permitted by the Parish Priest;
• at some social occasion before or after the funeral.

In other words, the church is saying: your funeral is not your show; bugger off. Well all right, I will.

There’s not much I’ve done in my life. I haven’t written the great Australian novel. I haven’t managed a great organization. I haven’t done my PhD (that I regret; the other 2 don’t matter). I’ve never learned to ride a bicycle, use an electric drill or bake a sponge cake. But I’d like to think there was something worth celebrating. And if my friends and family can’t do that at my funeral, when the hell are they doing to do it?

There is, however, one thing in Hart’s Guidelines with which I agree most heartily:

Recorded music should be avoided.

Hooray to that!

To summarize…

1. No church funeral
2. No recorded music

An aside

As a public document, offering ‘guidelines’ to the church in his Archdiocese, Hart’s Guidelines are very odd.

In part, it’s very formal (“The Funeral Mass is presented in the context of Masses for the Dead: General Instruction of the Roman Missal (revised) 379-385.”)

In part, it’s banal (“The pages of the booklet should be numbered.”).

And in part just strange (“At the funerals of children, pastoral care needs to be taken in the choice of music. Nursery rhymes and sentimental secular songs are inappropriate because these may intensify grief.”)

For many years I have puzzled over funeral announcements that include lines like “We miss you Fred”, or “You’ll never be forgotten”. Dead people, it seems to me, don’t read newspapers.

Dead people don’t read websites, either. Nor do people get to read the little booklets produced for their funeral. And they certainly don’t read the cards attached to bunches of flowers.

So please, no written messages to the dead. Address messages to the living!

PS If I’m wrong about all this, if there is a heaven, if I end up in heaven, if I’m living near a heavenly newsagent that makes every earthly newspaper and news magazine available for free, believe me, I would not be reading the dreary classifieds in The Age!

Some time ago I decided that I wanted no recorded music at my funeral.

I’ve changed my mind.

I’ve decided I’m going to have a lot of fun choosing the music for the funeral. Mostly, I suspect, it will be music that I learned to care for when I was young: as a teenager, and perhaps in my early 20s.

(Does that make me an old grump unable to move with the times? Possibly.)

The one thing we will, need, though, is a decent sound system. Not some tinny little sound from an MP3 player and a bad set of speakers.

I wonder if good old Staging Connections does funerals?