Dear Sisters and Brothers,

 

Funerals at a parish tend to go in streaks. We might go a couple months with very few funerals, and then have a few weeks full of them. With that being said, I want to address some concerning trends that have become more and more common in recent years related to funerals.

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First, there is often a lengthy gap between the death and the funeral. It used to be not that long ago that most funerals were within a week from the time of death. Now it is pretty common that families wait several weeks, and sometimes months until the funeral.

 

This leads to the second concern - when a death occurred, people used to drop everything for the funeral. That is unfortunately not true to the same extent anymore. I have had people say that they cannot schedule a funeral until after such and such a date because one of the family members is going on vacation and would not be available, or a son or granddaughter is taking college finals that week. Others have said they were not willing to take time off from work, or ask others to do so for a weekday funeral. This has lead to many people planning funerals on weekends and around other events in their lives. And because so many people do this now, and because funerals can come in bunches, as observed earlier, this means that the nearest Friday or Saturday might be already booked - and the one after, and the one after that. So some people then schedule it out months in advance so they can plan vacations and travel arrangements around it. And when another parishioner dies the same week that other funeral is scheduled and cannot get a weekend because the church or the priest is booked, it perpetuates the cycle.

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Major events, like weddings, should be planned out in advance with notices and invitations sent. And though the death of a loved one is a major event, the funeral should not be treated in the same way. Death, by its nature, interrupts life. To acknowledge the reality of death and its impact we should allow it to interrupt our lives. We do not schedule when we die - it is in God's hands - and our response should be to surrender our lives and plans to God in love. We can drop what we had planned to attend the funeral and remember that we too will die someday and be forced to drop everything when God calls us from this life.

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This might mean that someone from the family might not make it to the funeral, but that should be okay. If someone is not willing to change their plans and misses it, that is their choice and not your fault. And of course, there are going to be times where a delay is necessary - sometimes on the family side, and sometimes on the church side. And it is still a good idea to schedule other times for the family to plan to be together, coordinating vacation and travel, and remember their departed loved one and console each other - perhaps on the anniversary of the death. But burying the dead is a Corporal Work of Mercy, and we should not excessively delay that mercy for our loved one based on our convenience.

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Peace in Christ,

Fr. Timothy