FUNERAL PLANNING & PASTORAL CARE
funeral directors have a limited understanding of what we do at Catholic funeral celebrations. It may even be a good idea to have a meeting with the funeral directors in your area, together or separately, to gently remind them of what we do. Giving them material with Church and parish guidelines may help the funeral directors and families very much. It is much easier to cover the “dos and don’ts” at this kind of meeting than to have to tell a family later that we do not do certain things promised by the funeral home.
So let us look at some things we can do to prepare to meet the family. First, find out as much as you can about the person who has died. Tis can be done by checking with the person of contact at the parish. If there is a bereavement ministry in your parish, perhaps they are the ones who have made the initial arrangements with the family. Once this information is gathered, the next step is setting up a meeting with the family members. Some work ahead of time can be helpful. Perhaps a printed list of Scriptures can be available for the family. A list of suggested music can be emailed or made available ahead of time with links for the music from YouTube or another source, so the family as a group can listen ahead to the songs. Suggestions of how many songs and where the songs best fit would be helpful as well. In this way, we begin to engage the family in the liturgical sense of what will
14
occur at the funeral. We are showing in a caring, pastoral way that these are the songs we approve, and this is what they sound like. Preparing the family in this way will help them be ready to speak your language about the Mass and will make it easier to discuss what we can do and why we do what we do. How we handle these parts of the celebration can show that we as a community are caring, concerned, and supportive. It is a way to evangelize without using the words.
When families come in unprepared, they are asked to make decisions on things about which they may have little knowledge. We as the ministers are there to guide them and help them. Here is an example that perhaps we all have experienced: how many times do we ask for help when it comes to medical decisions? Doctors may give us many options, many times, then ask us to consider them, research them, and come back with a decision. We can do the same by giving information to the families to work with in advance. When families bring poems, secular music, or outside materials which may not fit into the liturgical language of the parish, we can return to the materials we gave them to assist in better liturgical decisions, without making them feel rushed, not cared for, or not heard. Tis may be an opportunity to present options to use the secular music or other materials outside of the Mass, such as during the Vigil at the funeral home or at the reception after the Mass.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
