A remarkable family reunion/funeral

Galway Cathedral

Margaret Mary Ward (87), from County Galway, Ireland, was buried last Wednesday in Salford, near Manchester, England, to where she had emigrated with her late husband Charles in 1963. Their 12 surviving children of 15 were present, as well as all 172 grandchildren, the eldest 51, the youngest only 11, their first time ever to gather together. Margaret, or 'Maggie' as she was known, also had 36 great-grandchildren and 18 great-great-grandchildren.
You can read the report in today's The Irish Times.

As we say in Irish, Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h-anam, may her soul be at the right hand of God.

A 'Good' Funeral

A “Good” Funeral

Negros Times 29-30 October 2008

The writer edits www.misyononline.com and has a blog at www.bangortobobbio.blogspot.com . You may contact him at undertheacacia@gmail.com

“As funerals go, it was a good one”. So spoke my former seminary rector, Fr. Joseph Flynn, after the funeral in Ireland in June 1997 of Fr. Frank Baragry who had spent almost 40 years in Mindanao. Father Baragry, whose older brother Father Dan had been working in the Philippines since 1955, was only 64. So there was a great sense of grief and loss.

So what made it a “good” funeral?

One unusual aspect was the large number of Filipinos present. They included Columban lay missionaries, religious sisters assigned to Ireland, some Filipinos married there and quite a few Columban priests home from the Philippines on vacation during the Irish summer. From among these a choir was formed that sang hymns in Cebuano.

This certainly helped to make the occasion a “good” funeral. But at the heart of the matter was a strong Catholic Christian faith. Because our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead, we can hope for the same. For centuries in every parish in the Philippines children have been proclaiming the Resurrection on Easter Sunday morning at the Salubong/Encuentro/Pagsugat as our Mother Mary, her statue carried by women, casts aside her mourning cloak when she meets her Risen son, his statue carried by men. Young girls dressed in white scatter petals of flowers as they sing “Resurrexit sicut dixit, Alleluia, alleluia”, “He has risen as he said, Alleluia, alleluia”.

And for centuries Filipinos have been living that same faith as they grieve for those who have died. Filipino wakes, like Irish ones, are not only mournful occasions but joyful ones too as people share stories about the deceased, as they laugh and cry at the same time. Only once have I experienced the full novena for the dead in the Philippines. A young man of 25 whose family was very close to me died after a motorcycle accident one Saturday morning. I had greeted him after Mass just a few hours before and anointed him after returning from a barrio fiesta when he was on the point of death.

I could see that the novena is a wonderful mixture of faith and basic humanity. In this particular case the whole town was in mourning. Jimmy was the second child and the eldest son in a family of six who had lost their father in an accident when the eldest was only 12 and the youngest less than a year. Jimmy was like a father to the rest. During the novena the people helped the family come to terms with their grief by their presence and by their prayers. The funeral Mass was the most difficult I have ever celebrated but I found my faith deepened when Jimmy’s mother, Ponying, offered him to God as he was being buried.

In Ireland we don’t have a novena for the dead and funerals take place within two or three days. People visit the house, where the wake usually takes place, though funeral parlors are not unknown in modern Ireland. Neighbors bring in sandwiches and cakes and make endless pots of tea and coffee for the visitors. The remains are brought to the church the evening before burial for what is called “the removal”. This is a Service of the Word led by the priest and takes place at 5:30 or 6 PM so that people can attend on their way home from work. Many who cannot attend the funeral the following day come to that service. The funeral Mass usually takes place the following morning and after the burial there is usually a meal.

One Irish practice that Filipinos find very strange is that the remains are left alone in the locked church overnight after the “removal”.

That wasn’t the case the night before Father Baragry was buried, as his remains were in the chapel of what was once a seminary with nearly 200 students but that now has none. And I know that some of the Filipinos kept vigil through the night before his burial.

But at the heart of it all, for Filipinos and for the Irish, especially in the past when the Catholic faith was much stronger in Ireland than it is now, is our hope in the Resurrection. Death is not the end, but the entrance to eternal life. And there is a healthy awareness of our unworthiness and of the need to pray for the dead, of the need for purification. A comparison I find useful is the help persons need before their wedding. They want to look their best. They wouldn’t go to the church in their working clothes or without taking a shower. Yet they feel a great sense of excitement while still preparing.

My understanding of purgatory is something like that: the soul knows the joy of having been saved but also knows that it is not yet ready to face God. It’s not a question of punishment but rather of the need to prepare more. There’s a sense of hiya, of “shame” in the Philippine sense. And the dead who are preparing to come into God’s presence are truly helped by our prayers just as a bride and groom preparing for their wedding are helped by those taking care of the many details that go with it.

Of course, what is most important of all when it comes to a wedding is preparing for marriage. A wedding is only for a day while marriage is for life. And our living faith in Jesus Christ in our daily lives is, with God’s grace and the prayers of our friends, the best preparation not only for death but for eternal life.

As we remember the dead this coming weekend, may we pray for the grace for our families and friends of a “good” funeral when our time comes.

undertheacacia@gmail.com

'Unequal rites for all'

Since we are travellers and pilgrims in the world, let us ever ponder on the end of the road, that is of our life, for the end of our roadway is our home (St Columban, 8th sermon).

Patsy McGarry, the religious affairs correspondent of The Irish Times, had an interesting article on last Saturday's paper about the inconsistencies in Catholic funerals in Ireland. The recent funeral of Ronnie Drew led to letters in the paper, some from people who weren't allowed the same latitude with regard to music at the funerals of family members as the Drew family was.

Patsy McGarry: Ronnie Drew's funeral has opened a debate about inconsistencies in the way guidelines for funeral Masses are applied, with 'secular' elements such as popular songs and eulogies being allowed in some cases but not in others, leading to charges that some bereaved are more equal than others.

Different dioceses in Ireland have different approaches. Nearly all of the funerals I have attended in Ireland have focused on the Mass. Music, if any, was Church music, some good, some bad, but not secular. However, many 'homilies', particularly at priests' funerals, have tended to be eulogies. One or two have borne a more than passing similarity to some of the awful drivel given by a half-drunk best man after a wedding dinner.

I think that a homily at a funeral can link the word of God to some aspect of the life of the person who has died where the deceased has exemplified some aspect of Christian life. But there should never be any premature 'canonization' of the person, especially if there are aspects of their lives known to all that were at variance with the Gospel.

We no more help the dead, or those who mourn them, by giving them false praise than if we were to give false praise to a starving man while failing to give him something to eat.

When the faith was strong in Ireland people faced death squarely and prayed for the dead. I've been at many joyful funerals, including some in recent years, when along with praying for the repose of the soul of the person who had gone ahead, there was a sense of gratitude to God for having been blessed by and through that person. And our faith in the Resurrection is the source of our joy. But funerals were funerals.

I've been unable to find an account of the funeral of Paddy Harrington, the father of golfer Padraig Harrington, who died three years ago. But I distinctly remember reading at the time that before he died, Paddy asked that his funeral be an occasion for people to pray for him and that the funeral Mass was to be an expression of faith, not a celebration of his sporting prowess. He played Gaelic Football for Cork in the 1950s. He also spotted the talent of his son Padraig and helped him develop it, while also training him in good manners, something Padraig is noted for.

I think that it is proper for a family member, or a representative of a family, say a few brief words of thanks at the end of Mass to those attending. And I think it is quite legitimate to even say a few words about the deceased. Once or twice I've been at funerals where the priest totally ignored the grieving family and just went through the motions, as it were, forgetting the emotions of people. This has left me feeling angry.

In Ireland people usually gather for something to eat after a burial, in a hotel or at home. I think that this is perhaps the time to celebrate in a 'secular' way. It's not a liturgical setting but it's part of the whole process of grieving. People can share their tributes and the favourite music of the deceased to their hearts' content.

A famous British TV comedy series, Only Fools and Horses, had a hilarious episode where Del Boy and his brother Rodney, the two central characters, went to a fancy-dress party as Batman and Robin. When they got there they discovered that the host had died suddenly and that they were at a wake instead. Nobody had informed them.

I think that some funerals are like that. At least Del Boy and Rodney felt embarrassed.

Photos of Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, where my parents and maternal grandparents are buried. The photo at the top is that of the grave of Liam Whelan of Manchester United, killeed in the Munich crash on 6 February 1958. I always stop and say a prayer for him when visiting my family's graves. I found this photo here and that it was taken by a man named Andrew Coyle, who I don't know. I know that Liam, a devout Catholic, had sent money to his mother to go on a pilgrimage to Lourdes. she used the money instead towards the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes over her son's grave.