At this particular affair, on an urban rooftop, the two young people were joined together by the minister of an unspecified denomination. The bride and groom, neither of whom we know very well (we're friends with one set of parents; we've reached the "Come to our kid's wedding and make gifts rain upon them" stage of life) both seem like very nice young people, with nice families and nice friends.
Both of the principals come from families with roots in liturgical churches, neither of which is the Catholic church. I know it was a source of some disappointment for our friends that their child chose not to wed according to the prescriptions of their church, which is important to that family for reasons both of faith and ethnic identity. It was relayed to us that the other newlywed comes from a family that belongs to a church but isn't particularly active in it.
From one point of view, I have a certain degree of sympathy for the kids themselves, who, we have been given to understand, don't attend church regularly. It's difficult enough to deal with the normal complexities and silliness of a wedding these days (about which there are not sufficient bytes on the Internet nor enough time in the remaining span of my life for me to express all of my strongly held opinions). In this case, they also needed to navigate (a) whether to get married in a religious ceremony at all; and (b) if so, would it be in the groom's tradition, or the bride's tradition, or some other way.
It seems they chose Some Other Way. I'd describe it as Religion Lite; maybe even Religion Xtra Lite.
As I mentioned, among the religious trappings was that the ceremony was presided over by a minister, who introduced herself to us as Rev. Pat. She let us know that she had been preparing the couple for nearly a year; and that every element of the wedding had been chosen by the couple themselves. Rev. Pat was kindly and jolly (qualities that, to be sure, one finds in many deacons) in a grandmotherly sort of way.
And to be fair, the ceremony did contain various elements of ritual, albeit in some cases elements which I had not previously encountered. For example: the couple observed a brief rite which was entitled the "Unity Glass". Beforehand, when I saw that item listed in the program, I had hoped that it might consist of raising a toast to the couple; it was rather hot in the sunshine on the rooftop, and a spot of something cool and refreshing would have been welcome. But it seems the "Unity Glass" consists of different colored glass beads (one color for him, another for her) which are poured by the couple from separate vessels into a shared vessel. By itself, that's nice enough, but here's the kicker, which I find myself admitting to be a pretty intriguing idea: the vessel with the shared beads is then sent to a glass-blower, who uses the beads to craft a glass Christmas ornament for the couple. The ornament is a permanent blending of the two colors into one, and each ornament is unique.
In addition to the "Unity Glass", the couples wrote letters to one another, which have been locked in a box which is not to be opened nor the letters read until the first anniversary. Locked, but apparently not sealed: Rev. Pat revealed that she had read the letters, and she sprinkled a few items from them into her sermon.
There also was a reading. It wasn't scripture, but it was from what one might broadly construe "wisdom literature": a short piece entitled "The Art of a Good Marriage" by Wilfred A Peterson, of whom I confess I had never before heard. Naturally, one can find it instantly on Google. Here is a short snippet:
[The Art of Marriage] is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is not expecting the husband to wear a halo or the wife to have wings of an angel.
It is not looking for perfection in each other.
It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding and a sense of humor.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.In the course of the ceremony, there was more than what I've described here; and it all culminated with the couple's vows, which, as might be expected, they had written themselves.
Now, I know you all know me well enough; and I doubt I have succeeded in keeping all the acerbity out of my description here. On the positive side of the ledger, I will note that it was a beautiful day, and the couple was happy, and there is something to be said for those things.
Nevertheless, it occurred to me that there also is something to be said for true ritual, such as is used in the Roman Catholic church. Here is something I would say about ritual: by its nature, it is not something that has to be created by the couple. It is given to the couple. That is intrinsic to ritual: we don't compose the sacred book, it's bequeathed to us. What is created (re-created) is what happens when we celebrate according to its words and rubrics. From something that is permanent and predictable (the prescribed ritual) arises something which is ephemeral and fleeting but, when done well, is beautiful, moving and memorable, and of an unplumbable depth.
I would also say - and I apologize that I am not sure how to say this without coming across as judgmental - that, 99 times out of a hundred, what is in the ritual is just plain better than what we compose on our own. My authority for holding this view is an adult lifetime of watching people trying to out-ritual the ritual. It almost always falls flat.
I suppose I come across as conservative in many things; but I sincerely don't think I'm a liturgical conservative. I certainly don't agree with many critiques of the liturgy that come from a traditionalist or reform-the-reform point of view (although I do think that some of their points are worth considering and discussing). I fervently wish that the Catholic authorities would let its public ministers like me go to the rooftops and beaches and Disney Worlds to preside at marriage ceremonies where people want them to be, rather than forcing the couple through the doors of the church. (That policy leads directly to urban rooftops and Rev. Pats.) I don't wish to criticize this happy couple, but I can't help but think that, had they been willing to follow the wedding ritual for either of their families' churches, the day would have been even more perfect.
Makes me think of back in the late '60s and '70s when everyone was using readings from Kahlil Gibran. In fact what you describe is a little bit deja vu from that era.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the beauty of time honored ritual. Wish we could have had more of it at our wedding. I wanted to use the same marriage rite that had been used for our parents. But no luck, we had to use the new VII rite, which was a little clunky, it has since been polished a bit since. I also wanted to use a reading from the Book of Common Prayer. No dice, there, either. So much for the couple getting to choose. Oh well, what was used has stuck for 47 years and counting.
Katherine, Bingo! I was just about to write that at least Jim was spared the Gibran.
ReplyDeleteThe unity glass -- I saw it done with water from two different bodies of water -- must be on line. Along with the surprise to the bride and/or groom when the guests get up and start singing the greatest hits from "Les Miserables." There are at least two of those on YouTube. Always marry someone who sings in a chorus for best results.
The rooftop spared you the usual "venue," which is tested by the tester (usually the bride) going into it and sneezing. If that causes her nose to bleed, the place is sonically ready for the disc jockey and his One Amp Too Many Show.
You say, "I would also say - and I apologize that I am not sure how to say this without coming across as judgmental, that, 99 times out of a hundred, what is in the ritual is just plain better than what we compose on our own." Oh, go ahead and be judgmental. I have doubts about your hundredth time as well.
Our kids are at the age when they and their spouses have to jet off to Hawaii (twice) or Vancouver, Canada, for a "destination wedding," so they can spend a couple of thou for the pleasure of gifting a few hundred on the happy couple that is now married but has been "together" for ten years. God bless us, everyone.
My friends and I used to fantasize doing what we called an "Arab Style" wedding, where the father of the groom emerges from the bridal chamber holding the blood stained cloth. He fires his rifle into the air several times and then we put another camel on the fire. Now THAT would have been a personalized wedding; at least the first time.
DeleteBut that's kind of the point. If one thinks about it, all of the personalized weddings tend to blend together in the memory.Unless some wedding stands out because there was something about it that really made someone angry, no one is going to remember how "unique" is was with the personalized vows and prayers.
My coworkers and I fantasized about a Viking funeral using the fire prone Ford Pinto. The remains would be placed in the driver's seat, the Pinto set afire and pushed toward a precipice while french horns played the theme from the Kirk Douglas/Tony Curtis movie.
DeleteThis reminds me, strangely enough, of funerals. Because of the nature of funerals, we have not (quite) moved to a point where funerals are individualized in the way that marriages often are. The thing for me about funerals is that because the main celebrant is usually not interested in personalizing them, funerals still carry the full weight of their social content. We still bury people as a group. And because we do, because it is essentially a social occasion, the thing that moves me about them is that one can go to a funeral and experience the ancient event of generations burying their dead as a community.
ReplyDeleteTo me, marriage has become individualized and (part and parcel of this) commoditized. Of course, the idea is, as always, that "I want to be different like everyone else". But a marriage is a social event. Not simply because there are other people there. But because marriage is a community ritual. One can go to City Hall or the County Building, sign the paper, say the words, and be married in three minutes flat. THAT'S marriage. But our ceremony is simply more than that and the marriage ceremony connects us with all other marriages in our community (even such as it is now) through time. And this is why I believe that it should be traditional. It should be traditional because it is a tradition. We have now come to a point where the very idea of tradition clashes with our sense of individuality. And we are impoverished for this.
I had two choices when my mother died: A wake with no service, or a Unitarian service, which follows a loose order and is as often as not conducted by the family. I chose option #2. (I suppose I could have called a Catholic church and explained it all to see if some deacon would come in and unofficially officiate, but my mother hated our being Catholic, and she let everyone know it, so that would have seemed like I was getting the last word in.)
DeleteMy mother had chosen option #1 for my dad. It left me and others feeling that there was no closure, and I was sad that there was no one to speak for Dad.
I put together the service from the order I found online at a U-U site--Welcome (and explanation of Unitarian funeral traditions so people understood they weren't getting clergy), prayer of thanks and celebration of life, psalm, eulogy, prayer or reading, closing.
No one was happy with this arrangement, but when I laid out the two choices, people agreed it was better than nothing.
There is probably a nice business out there for someone to put together dignified secular services for the "nones" who need some kind of closure, but who have no idea how to go about it.
Funeral homes often host services for someone who didn't belong to a church. They have a list of clergy willing to lead a generic service, or family members can do it.
DeleteIn retrospect I guess I should have asked about a generic clergyperson, but didn't think of it. I had been up half the night doing a long interview with the organ donation people, and was running on fumes when I met with the funeral director.
DeleteI would not recommend a do-it-yourself unless your extended family wants to do it that way. We were trying to appease several different religious factions as well as honor the wishes of the dead, and the best you can hope for is for them all to go away equally disgruntled, preferably disgruntled with Rev. Generic than you.
Jean, I well remember the "running on fumes" scenario when dealing with my mother's death. It sounds like you handled things exactly right, given your mother's wishes and the extended family.
DeleteAbout funeral directors/morticians, I think sometimes they aren't given credit for the work that they do. Here the deacons do all the wake services. My husband has gotten quite well acquainted with the morticians. They seem to be compassionate people who really do want to be helpful in a time of grief. One of the priests always thanks them after the graveside rites for doing the corporal work of mercy of burying the dead. Joseph of Arimathea is considered btheir patron saint.
Katherine, I agree regarding the sensitivity and ministry of funeral directors. I am not able to do many burials because of my day job, but the directors I work with are doing holy work. I also agree that that work often isn't recognized by the larger community.
DeleteYes, the funeral director who handled arrangements for my parents was a lovely man. His family has been in that business for about 100 years, and still one of the few family-owned. He handled things with dignity and empathy, and I appreciate the time he took to chat with me about my mom and dad.
DeleteBack in the 90s I audited the Ritual Studies course which was part of the liturgy track in the theology department at ND. It reviewed all the things that anthropologists had done about ritual. The bottom line seemed to be there was no easy way theoretically or practically to create new ritual.
ReplyDeleteBack in the sixties as an undergraduate during the summer quarter I took courses at the University of Washington in Seattle. Beautiful picture frame view of Mt. Ranier from my dorm room. I took an anthropology course on Childhood and Society taught be an elderly anthropologist who had done his work among native Americans.
He was very impressed by their ritual creativity in song and dance. He attributed this to the fact that from a very young age the children danced on the fringes of the gathering imitating the rituals at the center. Like a lot of other arts you have to master the elements before you can be truly creative.
Unfortunately we tend to think of mastery of our church rituals as an intellectual thing of explaining them rather than experiencing ritual. I have been fortunate to experience a lot of good liturgy over the years and most of it has been because people were so good at the basics that they could make the slight adjustments that made everything perfect.
Rather than feel smug and superior to the ritually deprived, perhaps folks here could explain how the Church's ritual can speak to today's families, who are often Protestant, other, and none. I'm not advocating that the Church amend the liturgy for non Catholic attendees, but how can the Church use the liturgy to bring joy/comfort to non Catholics attending Catholic weddings, funerals (and baptisms, first communions, and confirmations)?
ReplyDeleteJean, I think it's a great question. I hope Jack will keep me honest here, but in my view, ritual presupposes that those gathered are part of a community and have been formed in it. It's not something that an 'outsider' can simply enter and seamlessly be a part of. This is one of the reasons that initiation into Catholicism is itself a lengthy rite (in some cases, over a year).
DeleteThe reality today is what you describe: families don't conform to this ideal of a community unified by shared ritual heritage. I see this all the time. I did baptisms yesterday, and I'd guess 3/4 of the people there - young adults, children and some people of my generation - were not sufficiently familiar with Catholic ritual to know what to do (e.g. to respond "Pray for us" during a litany of the saints). I try to give brief instructions to help people participate. Some do try. And I don't think there are many adults who are completely and utterly unchurched; I suspect most have been dragged along to some church or other at least a few times in their life.
I think that the only thing that can (and should) be done is to
Delete1) welcome everyone explicitly
2) try to work in an explanation of what is going on
I don't think the service should be modified in any way for this purpose.
I said above I was not advocating amending the liturgy in any way.
DeleteHowever, if no effort is made to welcome and orient, as far as possible, non Catholics before the service begins, the Church is losing a golden opportunity to evangelize.
However, that effort is not in my hands. Our parish is not a welcoming one, so we never invited family to RCIA, first communion, or confirmation.
When I was studying theology at ND during the summers, I took two courses from Robert Taft, S.J., a leading scholar of the Eastern Rites.
ReplyDeleteTaft always gave us an annotated bibliography of the books on a particular topic available in the library. He told us that our task was to read as much as possible and make up our minds as to what they meant; his job was to tell us what he thought it meant.
Taft told us that it was not his job to give us answers to the many pastoral questions we had. But he also said that we were not likely to find good answers to them if we did not understand the history of the liturgy.
Taft also reminded us that liturgy is ritual, that means you do the same thing again and again. Therefore the people have a right not to be surprised and not to be confused. Therefore our solution to pastoral problems should not produce either.
In the reformed liturgy we have many pastoral options, actually many more than we ever use. We could for example sing the Creed. I don’t think I have sung the Creed in English ever at a Mass although I sing it regularly at the Orthodox Divine Liturgy. However, all the options we do use means that many parishes do things differently. We have just gotten a new young pastor in one of our parishes. So there is a lot of surprise and confusion about what he is doing. He regularly explains things in the bulletin. However liturgy is about practices. He needs to do new things very slowly with much forewarning.
Part of the problem of weddings and funerals is that unlike weekend Masses most of the people who come to them are not from the parish. In any ritual no matter how unfamiliar (e.g. Eastern Rites) it is very helpful to know that the majority of people at the service understand and are participating. What we often have at weddings and funerals is a small number of people who really understand and can participate fully in the service.
In August of last year a member of our Commonweal Local Community died. He was a retired professor at a Catholic academy, devoted to Merton, spent some time at a distant Trappist monastery, and was a Zen Buddhist priest (that is more about rituals than beliefs). Wayne prayed the Divine Office so a couple of us led Evening Prayer for the Dead which pleased the family very much because Wayne talked so much about our CLC. Wayne lived his last months with his adopted grand daughter who is of Asian descent. She is married to a Black and has two beautiful daughters in their twenties.
The Mass was at the academy; the priest led it in a very relaxed manner that brought together all the diversity that was assembled. He started the service with the eulogies. I had never seen that done but it made great sense. What we all had in common was Wayne. Wayne had a profound spiritual influence upon his two grand daughters and also upon the Buddhist wife of one of the faculty members who spoke. The service unfolded in a leisurely way with a lot of cues about what was happening next and ended with an invitation to all to come to Wayne’s house after the service.
"He started the service with the eulogies. I had never seen that done but it made great sense."
DeleteThat is very interesting - I've never seen that before, either. In addition to, as you report, helping people to enter into the ritual, it also may have been a way to honor the liturgical-law requirement that eulogies not be incorporated into the liturgy itself. (That particular requirement is honored more in the breach than the observance, in my experience, and I think it's something that the church authorities need to think hard about. That the ban is so often ignored indicates that the eulogies are addressing a pastoral need.)
"That the ban is so often ignored indicates that the eulogies are addressing a pastoral need."
DeleteYes. If you follow the letter of the requirement, which barely anyone does, you are not acknowledging the deceased or the grief of the family. Technically the funeral homily is supposed to be on the scriptures. But the liturgical purists don't win this one.
" If you follow the letter of the requirement, which barely anyone does, you are not acknowledging the deceased or the grief of the family. "
DeleteMy personal view is that the official approach you're summarizing here presupposes a distinction/separation between psychology and spirituality that may not apply to real people in real life. I read the ban as implying, "We're here to address spiritual needs; if people are struggling psychologically with the meaning and impact of this person upon them, and the beautiful or difficult relationships with the deceased, then there is somewhere other than the inside of the church building to deal with those questions and issues."
Personally, I'd consider that viewpoint both a faulty anthropology, and an impoverished view of the healing possibilities of the ritual. Humans are integrated; we're bodies and souls and minds all at once.
The sacraments are made for us, not us for the sacraments. The excessive concern about eulogies has a lot of clericalism about it, e.g. that we are there because of the clergy rather than the deceased.
DeleteNow the ministers do have to look beyond the deceased to all the people who have come, but to be responsive to their needs not as an opportunity for their pet projects.
IF we are truly creative about liturgy we can discover opportunities like the eulogy as beginning.
Actually the period before Mass is a golden opportunity for many things. The Roman Rite has a very truncated gathering ritual, traditions like the Byzantine have a far longer one.
When VOTF Cleveland did Masses for victims of sexual abuse. I put most everything people wanted into a preliminary service of hymns, readings and prayers. I left the Sunday Mass as is; the hymn choices and the creativity of the homilist made the integration.
Before Mass is also a good time for lay 'homilies' At one parish the woman pastoral minister gave her 'homily' by introducing a framework the readings by talking about current issues and events. Really got me to pay attention to the readings because I was asking 'how do these apply to what she has just said." It complemented the homily rather than replacing it. Unfortunately she was doing this during the Mass right before the readings so that got shut down. But no reason you cannot do it before Mass.
im:they also needed to navigate (a) whether to get married in a religious ceremony at all; and (b) if so, would it be in the groom's tradition, or the bride's tradition, or some other way.It seems they chose Some Other Way. I'd describe it as Religion Lite; maybe even Religion Xtra Lite.
ReplyDeleteWell, at least there is a slight show of empathy for the wedding couple - pulled this way and that by the expectations of others. Unfortunately, though, their personalized, "religion Xtra Lite" ceremony didn't please some. And why should it have - it was their wedding.
Good on them for standing up for what they themselves wanted, for what was of deep meaning for them in their own marriage ceremony.
Ritual - there are several here who absolutely love liturgy and ritual. There are others (well, at least one - me) who are not quite so enamoured of liturgy and religious ritual. I prefer "ritual lite". Simple weekday masses, not all-the-bells-and-whistles- and sometimes incense - masses. The simplicity of Evening Prayer or Evensong attracts me more than the Sunday liturgies.. My preferences, and I don't need or desire to impose them on everyone else.
So many people seem to want to take the formalities and celebration of marriage away from the two people involved. Some parents/grandparents, others, want a big elaborate wedding even though the couple wants something small and simple. Or vice versa - some don't care if their parents have to mortgage their house for the wedding of the week. (A sign that perhaps the wedding should be postponed a while) There are hurt feelings over who is invited and who isn't, who is in the wedding party and who isn't, how to handle photos with divorced parents and their new spouses.
If a couple is not particularly religious themselves, regardless of how religious their families of origin might be, the right thing to do is to respect their desires, not impose one's own. If they don't want a formal religious ritual as part of their marriage ceremony, this should be honored. If they wish to personalize their wedding ceremony by choosing symbols that are meaningful to them (a unity candle,or unity glass or whatever), it should be honored because of its significance to the couple.
Why impose one's preference for a formal liturgy on a couple who do not want it? Why insist that a couple who prefers to have the symbols, readings, music, flowers and other wedding accoutrements reflect their beliefs and values instead go along with rites and rituals that have no meaning for them - when it is not their preference but that of their parents, or grandparents, or family priests/ministers/ (or even deacons who may be among the invited guests)
The only thing I remember about the Catholic weddings I've gone to in recent years (all pretty much the same, after all) was the homily given at one - the priest decided that a wedding was the appropriate place for a homily on abortion – a very unpleasant surprise for the wedding couple.
I remember no details of my own wedding mass I don't know what the music was (minimal as I had no money - wore my sister' dress), or the readings, or a single word of the homily. We spoke the vows they gave us to speak. Everything was programmed by the parish and I was too compliant to object. However, the pastor was great - he invited my Protestant husband to take communion. It hadn't even occurred to me before he did, that my husband would have been expected to stay in the pew during communion. He was a great priest, and it's probably because of him that I didn't leave the RCC then. (When he retired, E.J. Dionne wrote a wonderful piece about him that was in the WaPo)
… had they been willing to follow the wedding ritual for either of their families' churches, the day would have been even more perfect..
More perfect for whom, Jim?
". I prefer "ritual lite". Simple weekday masses, not all-the-bells-and-whistles- and sometimes incense - masses. The simplicity of Evening Prayer or Evensong attracts me more than the Sunday liturgies.. My preferences, and I don't need or desire to impose them on everyone else."
DeleteSimplicity is a ritual preference; life is not simple. You have to NOT DO things to keep them simple. Simplicity like complexity can be a way out of chaos into the transcendent.
Re funerals - Jean, you did the right thing because you chose to honor your mother's religious beliefs.
ReplyDeleteNow that I have hit my 70s, and have been attending more funerals in recent years (unfortunately) I have started to think more about them. I plan to leave instructions for my children, (and my husband if he should outlive me).
My mother did that - the month before she died (out of the blue, from an aneurysm. A total shock as she had been fine), she told each of her five children, separately, that she wanted to be buried in the family plot in western New York state. She had been born in LA and lived her entire life there, but her happiest memories were of her grandfather's farm in rural New York (rural then, not so much now). She had contacted the church (where her Irish grandparents had gotten married) to see if there was room in the family plot. There was, and she made the arrangements. When we got to her condo in Calif after she died so suddenly, we also found that she had already made arrangements with a funeral home, and paid for them (including the expense of shipping the casket across country). We had a funeral mass at her parish church and it was filled. But that made me sad, as I know how lonely she had felt in her later years, lonely for her lifelong friends. She had always been very "social", and over the years, as they got older, many of her friends no longer made the effort to get together with her. They became focused on their own kids and grandkids, pretty much to the exclusion of everyone else. This was SoCal, and many (including my mother) had mostly given up driving, at least not very often, and not on freeways. I saw many of her friends that I had remembered from my childhood. Somehow they managed to get to the funeral mass (and the restaurant luncheon afterwards, open to all). She would have been much happier to have had them come to see her while she was still alive.
The five of us were amazed when we compared notes to learn that she had told all of us, privately and not together, the same thing about being buried in the family plot, only a couple of weeks before she died so unexpectedly. Almost as if she had a premonition.
My "closure" was not via the funeral mass and luncheon gathering. It was a couple of weeks later, on a perfect fall day, in the cemetery of an old church in a town that she had often talked about, but which I had never visited. Only her children, our spouses, and her grandchildren were there, plus a priest (or maybe a deacon, I don't remember) who said a prayer graveside. I looked around at the glory of the blue, blue sky, and the flaming, gorgeous colors of the trees, and knew that my mother would be happy with her final resting place.
I always feel God's presence in creation - in nature. I seldom feel God's presence in ritual and liturgy. So - closure. It can come in different ways for different people. Some in a formal funeral liturgy, others may find it while scattering ashes in a river, or at a full-blown Irish style wake, or in a quiet cemetery with nobody there except those closest to the person who is being laid to rest.
My husband and I have to find a new attorney to update our estate plan. We had started the update process, but our estate planning attorney died after our first meeting - he was only 59. We had delayed getting back to him with answers (did we need to name new trustees? New executors? Change the hospital directives? Twelve years after it was first drawn up).
My husband and I plan to discuss funeral issues too - not just replacing an aging executor. But, we might have to inform our kids before they have to deal with estate matters. If our wishes are not made known ahead of time, they might not even read our preferences before they have already made other arrangements. They most likely wouldn't look at the estate documents until later.
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DeleteMy wife and I planned our DIY funerals years ago. It began with a fight. I wanted "Lord, I Lift Your Name on High" as my recessional. (It comes right after "Saints of God," when everybody needs something peppy.) She was not, not, not going to put me away with yon cheesy song which may mean a lot to me (it does -- from CHRP) but is just a cheesy song to her. And so we hit on a solution: I get to pick the music for her funeral, and she picks it for mine. She is willing to go out to the cheesy song as long as she doesn't have to hear it.
DeleteTom, you made me look. I found "Lord I Lift Your Name on High" on youtube. It sounds like a good recessional. "Saints of God" I know, we sing it while the priest incenses the coffin.
DeleteEvery time I have to have any kind of medical tests, I play the funeral hymn game in my head. My choices have changed over the years. I finally have accepted that nobody is going to sing Handel's "The Trumpet Shall Sound" for me. Not that I've ever put any preferences in writing. We have been kicking the last will and testament, and medical directives, can down the road for way too long. We're finally going to do something about it. In October.
Anne, thank you for those lovely stories about your mom and how you found closure.
DeleteWent to one Polish funeral where an accordion player played everyone out of church with a polka.
DeleteActually, I want "Saints of God". Cheesy is in the eye of the beholder. or maybe the ears. What is CHRP?
DeleteCRHP = "Christ Renews His Parish", and usually pronounced "chirp". Kinda sorta like Cursillo, I'm told (I've been on CRHPs, never done Cursillo).
DeleteKatherine, Sing "The Trumpet Shall Sound"?! Probably not impossible. But where, even in a big city, would one find a trumpet virtuoso who could handle it? I do love the thought.
DeleteJust mention the title, "And the Trumpet Shall Sound", and I get goosebumps.
Delete"More perfect for whom, Jim?"
ReplyDeleteSure, a fair question. In answering it, I'm going to follow the example of that fellow from Nazareth who seemingly never gave a straight answer to a simple question, and who was wont, at the slightest provocation, to break into a tale to illustrate a point:
Suppose you throw a dinner party, for which you've prepared a beautiful and sumptuous crown rib roast. One of your guests calls you shortly beforehand and says, "I'm vegetarian. Will you have anything to serve besides red meat?" One possible answer would be, "Sorry, this dinner party is my special day. I'm going to serve what I like best."
I find I'm now reverting to Aesop, and providing the moral to the story: in a public, social event, it's commonly thought that to be gracious of the host and hostess to be sensitive to the desires and preferences of their guests. I think that is one very good reason to stick to the community's tried-and-true ritual.
At a deeper, theological level (or perhaps it's pre-theological; after all, weddings predated their designation as a sacrament), weddings aren't only about the couple. Traditionally, and still today, even in the developed world, a wedding cements the alliance between two families. And beyond family and clan, marriage is, by its nature, a public, social reality. I'm now expending some of the free bytes on the Internet and the remaining seconds of my time on earth to voice something that really frosts me about weddings these days: that so many of them fail to acknowledge the truth that weddings are about much more than the couple. For example: there were no more than 4-5 children among the 180+ attendees. To be sure, there are reasons, both financial (kids are charged per head like adults) and social (receptions have become PG-rated, sometimes even R-rated, and not everything is appropriate for young children), to not invite kids to weddings. But when the kids are excluded, it's neither a true family nore a true communal celebration. It's something else - I would say, something less.
My overall view is that I do think the bride and groom have a responsibility to acknowledge the reality of the family and communal dimensions of what they're undertaking, and that acknowledgement should be reflected in the ceremony and even the party afterward.
To briefly address a couple of your other points: I'm not seeking to impose anything on anyone. On the other hand, I have a perfect right - maybe even an obligation - to propose.
And as for elements of the celebration that have deep meaning for the couple: I seriously doubt that some of the elements that were in this wedding were thought up by them without help. Specifically, I am pretty sure that Rev. Pat (who, btw, would seem to be of an age to be of Gibran vintage) had a hand in some of those elements, like the glass-blowing and the letter-writing (she acknowledged as much in her remarks). But beyond that, do we really think twenty-somethings, or even fifty-somethings like me, are always the best judges of what has deep meaning for them, now or in the future? I don't. I think there is a lot of wisdom in relying on communal ritual, which has made it this far because it is proven to be a fount of deep meaning to a lot of people over a lot of years. But that is only evident to twenty-somethings who have been exposed to it, and have reflected on it, and are open to the wisdom of their elders and their own tradition. None of those conditions are particularly likely in this day and age.
I think that this is a very acceptable interlude in the very traditional Catholic wedding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYKwqj5QViQ
ReplyDeleteAnd maybe this if the presider and couple have a sense of humor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctjG4MjJwEA
Jim, you are tenacious! You believe that everyone should see things exactly the way you see them. And so you believe that a couple planning their wedding have a responsibility to have the wedding that other people want them to have. That somehow it's an obligation.
ReplyDeleteSeriously?
It never would have occurred to my husband and me to tell our sons what they should do at their own weddings. Up to them as far as in church or not (one in church, two not in church). Up to them to invite the people they want, and not a bunch of people that their parents want at the wedding. Their choice of music. Their choice of readings. Their choice of symbols. Their choice of rituals. Their choice of words to say in their vows.
Their wedding, not ours.
If someone is invited to dinner, or to a wedding, and they don't like what's on the menu (ritually or otherwise), they can always RSVP with “We regret that we are unable to accept the kind invitation of…”
If a couple is going to be married in a church, the clergy has a right to "propose". Otherwise, nobody has any right to tell them that they have an "obligation" to submit to the wishes of their families and their "community" (whoever that is.)
The median age at first marriage in the US for men is 30, and it is 28 for women - adults who have the responsibility to be true to their own values and beliefs, even if it makes some of their family and "community" squirm a bit.
It's easy to see why so many young adults are fleeing organized religion. There is too often very little respect for the intelligence, ideas, religious and/or spiritual beliefs (including atheism and agnosticism), and values of those who are younger, but who are adults. They are told to heed the "wisdom" of their elders and of the "tradition" they were raised in, even if they no longer agree with it or participate in it.
"A wedding cements the alliance of two families". As was done in ancient times and some countries today - the individuals who are the couple had/have no say in who their husband/wife will be. In ancient times, women were property - first of their fathers, then of their husbands. The marriage was a business deal between families.
I knew a young woman when I was a student in Paris (we lived in the same dorm), the daughter of VERY wealthy people in Greece. She took an overdose of pills after her parents told her that their choice of husband for her was final (she had broken two engagements by then - to men she had not even met before the engagement), and that she would meet him the next time she got home and they would set a date for the wedding – which would be a grand Greek Orthodox ritual, heavy on symbol, in a church that would hold hundreds, infused with tradition and family and community – and all wrong.
The marriage had been arranged to "cement the alliance" between the families (the joining of two financial empires). After her stomach was pumped she ran away. She hid from her parents (on another continent!) until they finally agreed to allow her to choose her own husband.
I admire the young adults who stand firm in order to have the wedding they want, respectfully (one hopes it's respectfully - even if their decisions are not being respected by others) declining to defer to the wishes/rituals/symbols/readings/wording of vows that are not meaningful to them, even if they were meaningful to their parents, or their priests/ministers, or the religious community in which they were raised - but which is no longer their community.
Have as many children as you want at YOUR wedding. Have the prescribed readings and rituals at YOUR wedding. Defer to parents and grandparents and the religious community you were raised in - those choices would reflect YOUR values.
But don't insist that they are the best choices for those who don't share YOUR values.
Of course you're right, it's their wedding, and they have carte blanche. As I was invited, at least in part, to provide them with pillowcases or a slow cooker or some such, I consider myself a stakeholder to the event, and therefore free to offer unsolicited advice. (Not really; it's not truly a gift if it comes with those strings attached.)
DeleteIn a more serious vein, the fact that my wife and I, who hardly know the couple at all (in fact, we still haven't met the bride; curiously, there was no receiving line), were invited to the wedding, signifies that it's an event that is filled with family and social significance. We were invited because our personal friendship with the parents of the groom makes us a friend of the family. And we gave a gift because that is what friends of families do for the children of family friends.
I've known a few people who have been in arranged marriages, either in India or, in one case, Indian immigrants to the UK. In the instances I'm aware of, the families arranged the matches, but the prospective brides and grooms had veto power, and there was the equivalent of a period of dating to give them freedom to make up their minds. (On the other hand, I know at least one Indian couple who met on an Indian dating site.) But whether or not a marriage is arranged by the families, the upshot is the same: the two extended families are now affiliated, both legally and socially. The joining of husband and wife has social implications beyond the two of the two spouses.
Yeah, it's the couple's wedding. That's why one of my favorite priests prefers doing funerals. At weddings, something does not go perrrrrfectly, and someone -- usually the bride or her mother -- is devastated and needs everyone to know it. At funerals, everyone is thinking s/he should have been nicer to the deceased and is atoning by being nice to everyone else.
Delete>>At funerals, everyone is thinking s/he should have been nicer to the deceased and is atoning by being nice to everyone else.<<
DeleteWhaaa? I have seen more backstabbing and nastiness at funerals than anywhere. Family may not be all together again, so last chance for the grudges and grievances to come out and get a good showing.
The best souvenir of our wedding, all these years later, is the guest book that everyone signed. So many of the people are gone now, more of them than are still alive. My grandparents, parents-in-law, aunts and uncles. My paternal grandma was in charge of riding herd on my little sister. She was only three, and managed to sign an E (her initial) under grandma's signature. Now she is 50. It doesn't seem like all that time went by. I still remember that it was 95 degrees in the shade. My husband was 25, I was 21. We thought we were grown up (we weren't, not all the way). And yes, it was about two families that were affiliated from that day forward.
DeleteJean, I hope your wedding back-stabbings are some kind of Michigan thing. It's probably the water.
DeleteJust googled "Saints of God". It's not the song I was thinking of.
ReplyDeleteThe one I was thinking of is in the Episcopal Hymnal. It's really, really chirpy! "I Sing a Song of the Saints of God"
Usually it's sung as a children's hymn for All Saints Day. But I heard it first at the funeral of a beautiful young woman, mother of four (from age 3 - 13), who died at 42. She was English, and hers was the first funeral I ever went to in an Episcopal church. She died of cancer, and she had a long time to plan her death. She made videos, reading to her young children., reading letters she wrote to them also, and to friends and husband and family. She planned her funeral service. The sweetness and innocence of this hymn reflect her own sweetness and goodness. It was perfect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS_nCvf2TnU&list=RDiS_nCvf2TnU&start_radio=1&t=39
But, I'm quite sure most here will have heart failure when they hear it.
I remember that song and love it!
DeleteThe song I was thinking of was, I believe, by John Foley of the St. Louis Jesuits. It was written for the final farewell when they are incensing the coffin. I think the Latin version used to be, "In Paradisum deducant angeli.."
DeleteAnne, I followed your link and listened to the song. It is lovely, and quite appropriate for All Saints, or a funeral. Don't know why we would have heart failure!
DeleteKatherine and Jean - I'm glad you like the hymn. It's one of my favorites and expresses my personal beliefs on who the "real" saints are (often not those who are the canonized!)
ReplyDeleteJim: the upshot is the same: the two extended families are now affiliated, both legally and socially. The joining of husband and wife has social implications beyond the two spouses.
Well, I'm not sure that anyone in the families are joined legally except for the married couple themselves.
I think that we all bring our own personal experience and backgrounds to these matters. It has been my sense that Jim P and Katherine grew up in pretty Norman Rockwell kinds of family environments. Maybe Tom also, at least the Catholic version of it.. Jean and I did not. Our families were more dysfunctional.
I know that I have lots of cousins in California, but I have no idea who they are, where they live, or anything about them - except for one cousin on my mother's side. Mom was one of four, my father was the youngest of nine. So, there are more cousins out there somewhere. As you might surmise, the families were not close - not even the members of the same nuclear families.
So, I did not grow up with a model of two families joined at the hip legally and socially when their kids married. I did not even know families like you describe even among my friends. Calif was a state of immigrants. Both my parents were born in Calif and grew up there. Their parents had moved west, but none of their parents' sibs or extended family did the same. This was typical of Californians for a very long time.
In one of my college classes, the prof asked how many of us had been born in California. There were two of us - out of 45. Most people left their families of origin somewhere to the east of California, and so big, connected families were pretty rare. No culturally ethnic parishes either, except for the Mexican parishes downtown. No Irish, Polish, German, Italian etc parishes Just a big mishmash of everyone from everywhere.
I am still in contact with the one cousin I knew growing up though and usually have seen her when in LA. ;)
I grew up in CA, my husband grew up in MD. Needless to say, after we married, his family and mine did not socialize much. I think maybe my mother and my husband's parents had a family dinner with us 6-8 times, over a roughly 20 year period. They ALL died in 1992 (and that was the end of the socializing.
Our oldest son and his family live in LA. His wife's mother lives in Florida. We have seen her once since the wedding 7 years ago - a few years ago in Florida. Our youngest lives in Sydney. His wife is French. So, although we feel we are fairly compatible with her parents on a social basis (and they speak fluent English), they live across an ocean from us. We have seen them for a few days at a time, as guests in their home, twice since the wedding in 2015. We see our middle son's family a bit more often since they live next door to our son and his family. They are Viet Namese, and they are part of a HUGE extended clan of Viet Namese Catholics - relatives and non-relatives. But, we aren't in San Jose more than a couple of times/year, their accents are thick and with my hearing loss I have great difficulty understanding them. They are lovely people, but even if we lived there, I doubt seriously that we would socialize with them very often outside of the kids' events maybe.
But even if all of our children lived in the DC area, and all of their own nuclear families did too, I don't think that it's wise to assume that the two families will be close - "legally and socially". If everyone can behave at least at shared family events (kids birthdays etc), that's probably as good as it gets in most families, brought together occasionally through the marriage of their children.
Anne- many thanks, I always appreciate your perspective, and you always write it so clearly.
DeleteI don't know if my family was a Norman Rockwell family (we were Catholic, after all :-)), but you're right that I grew up in a two-parent household. We had issues, problems, stresses - I am sure all families do, although some more so than others, and I don't want to trivialize the really permanently wounding things that happen to some family members. For some reason I seem to have emerged from my family experience more unscathed than some of my siblings.
My siblings all are scattered now. As a matter of fact, three of them have migrated to California :-). We text, but that's kind of superficial. It's difficult to get everyone together.
My mother celebrated her 80th birthday earlier this year and we sensed she was disappointed that more of the children didn't come in for the celebration. But everyone's busy (as in the old song "Cats in the Cradle"), travel is expensive, and so on. My mother is one who really has worked hard to cultivate and maintain ties with her extended families (on both her mom's and dad's sides) - she still regales me with news of cousins of hers and their descendants, but honestly I can't keep track of who is related to whom, which former husband is the father of which child, etc. And it is hard work to keep up with a family. I think one of her secrets is writing letters (old-fashioned snail mail). There is something about a letter that makes for communication that is qualitatively different, even from an email. Or so it seems to me.
In the last three years, I've been invited to two family reunions, one on my mom's side (in Indiana which is where her dad is from; they're all Protestant and some of them don't drink, so there was no beer at this family reunion - what kind of a family reunion is that?!), and on my dad's side in my hometown in Michigan (that's the more overtly ethnic part of my family - all the drink one could wish for). There is a lot to be said for those get-togethers, I think.
I don't think we were Norman Rockwell-esque (that was more eastern, Protestant, and not ranch/farm). But my mom had a charism of hospitality. My husband's family was much smaller, and not as close with one another. After my mother-in-law was a widow, Mom always invited her to Thanksgiving, as well as any guests of us kids, and any stray relatives who were at loose ends.
DeleteDIY funerals, it turns out, are all the rage in Florida. Or whatever. One of my favorites was the one in which Grandma's ashes were split up 26 different ways and stuffed into lockets, earrings and bracelets. The 26 proud owners of Grandma wanted to process up the aisle with their Granny bling. The pastor said it wouldn't be necessary.
ReplyDeleteOf course now Granny will go trough 26 Dumpsters on her way to her final repose.
The subject of DIY funerals (or not) came up at the men's group this morning. The operations manager of the big Catholic cemetery is a member, and two deacons. They just happened to swap stories.
In the past six years, the cemetery has interred more than 1,000 boxes of ashes the family paid for but didn't want to mess with finding a funeral plot for. Sometimes there is reconciliation and the family wants Granny's ashes. A couple of times a year, one priest comes out and conducts an interment ceremony for a bunch of them.
And anything you want that isn't in your rule will be ignored by the ruling survivor.
Among the things I learned today.
Should be: "that isn't in your" will will be ignored..." I might add that it's the law in Florida that the survivors wishes supersede anything that isn't written down and attested to.
DeleteTurns out Amazon has a plethora of options for wearable ashes (gives a new meaning to sackcloth and ashes?). Or, if one would prefer, the departed's ashes can be turned into crystalline art forms. I actually prefer these options to scattering the ashes. As for divvying up ashes 36 ways, Catholics don't have much room to criticize, given our habit of parting out saint relics like a vintage Mustang in a salvage yard.
DeleteMy uncle's memorial service was Saturday, and I was shocked to be given a Ziploc bag of what I estimate to be about a third of his ashes. I know it's not kosher by church standards, but I'm taking them to his favorite trout stream to scatter. The DNR said they have no objections as long.
Deleteas "you don't make a habit of it." (?)
I also ended up with his model 94 Winchester lever action rifle ca 1940. (Like on The Rifleman!) I can hardly lift it. Raber wants to chop it up so it can never be used. But it's worth some money, so I am deeply conflicted.
We are each other's joys and burdens.
Sorry to hear about your uncle's passing, Jean.
DeleteIf everybody stuck with 1940 Winchester rifles instead of Ak-7s, they couldn't carry out mass shootings. You have to do what you think is best about the rifle, but if it were me, I would sell it to a collector with a good reputation. Then use the money to do something you want to do, and lift a toast to your uncle.
Katherine is right. Not a murder machine except maybe for varmints.
DeleteChuck Connors could do wonderful things with that gun and retakes. He was a pretty fair first baseman for the Cubs while he was doing that, too.
DeleteHad lunch with a friend who suggested selling it and donating the proceeds to an anti gun-violence group. I like that idea.
DeleteOh, yeah, forgot Chuck Connors played baseball.
Katherine: Don't know why we would have heart failure!
ReplyDeleteMaybe because the hymns suggested by most here were those like The Trumpet Shall Sound?
The idea of the ashes being enclosed in jewelry...... oh dear.
I don't like embalming or open caskets. The Jews and Muslims bury their dead as soon as possible - usually within 24 hours of death.
I will instruct my survivors to keep me on ice until I can be buried in the natural cemetery of a Trappist Abbey in nearby Virginia - no vault, and I think no casket is actually required. Burial in a shroud, in a beautiful natural place, with only close family and a half-dozen handpicked friends invited - a simple, private service with readings selected ahead of time. Someone to say a prayer. One hymn sung by a good vocalist without accompaniment (don't know which hymn yet)...a place where I my earthly remains would rest in peace.
No newspaper announcements, no obituary. No eulogy. But a lovely lunch or dinner in one of the beautiful country restaurants near the Abbey. My family and friends can then exchange stories, and, hopefully laugh more than they cry.
I visit the Abbey about once a year. More often if there is turmoil in my life. It is serene, peaceful, beautiful - a truly holy place that "restoreth the soul". I usually go at a time when I can attend the sung Vespers after a couple of hours of sitting in silence in God's presence, surrounded by the magnificence of God's creation. No church, no cathedral, no work of art or piece of music conveys the wonder of God the way the natural world does. Francis knows this too.
So much peace and beauty and serenity - only a little more than an hour from our home, but a different world completely.
https://www.virginiatrappists.org/cemetery/
John Newman's brief prayer says everything that I need as prayer when laid to my final rest.
May He support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done! Then in His mercy may He give us safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last
The Trappist abbey sounds like a lovely place. And your funeral plan sounds like a simple, dignified ceremony.
DeleteI understand that the funeral in my head will likely bear no resemblance to the funeral I will get. I hope by that time that I am done caring about that stuff. I really like that Newman prayer. I'm going to work it into my Compline devotions.
Delete"I hope by that time that I am done caring about that stuff."
DeleteSame.
Makes me think of Emily Dickinson's "I felt a funeral in my brain..." Not one of my favorites , the last stanza being pretty bleak.
DeleteKatherine, thanks for that Emily Dickinson reference. I hadn't read it before. Here it is, along with one attempt to explicate it. I'd summarize it as, "Nobody really knows for certain what the hell it means." But still well worth reading - the imagery is arresting.
Deletehttps://interestingliterature.com/2016/11/01/a-short-analysis-of-emily-dickinsons-i-felt-a-funeral-in-my-brain/
She (Emily) always leaves me feeling less secure in my sanity coming out than I was going in.
DeleteThanks for the link, Jim. IMO they're trying too hard to understand it. Sometimes a piece about a funeral is about (surprise), death. And fear of death. That last icy cold line, "And Finished knowing -then-". That's the fear that this is all there is, and when it's over, it's over. As John Donne put it, "I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun My last thread, I shall perish on the shore..."
Delete