Funerals, Eulogies & Benedict UPDATED!

The death of Benedict started an immediate speculative conflict about whether or not Benedict would be given a funeral appropriate to a pope since he was now the emeritus Pope or the emeritus Bishop of Rome. 

George Weigel is not someone whom I usually read. He is infamous for his review of one of Pope Benedict's encyclicals in which he put in gold all the words he agreed with (which were obviously the mind of Benedict) and in red all the words he disagreed with) which were obviously the work of some Curia hack. An outstanding example on cafeteria Catholicism!

However, his review of the Funeral rites gets it right

On the Funeral Liturgy and Homily

So I found it appropriate that the funeral Mass for the late Pope Emeritus was characterized by what seemed to me noble simplicity, albeit noble simplicity amplified by the participation of thousands of concelebrants. That the liturgy was conducted primarily in Latin was also in accord with the teaching of Sacrosanctum Concilium, and in this instance at least the Latin served as a universal language for a Mass in which the entire world Church was represented. Thus the Latin response, Te rogamus audi nos, sung by the congregation, tied together the general intercessions prayed in German, French, Arabic, Portuguese, and Italian. 

In the hours after the funeral Mass, criticism of the brevity of Pope Francis’s homily reverberated throughout the Twitterverse and Catholic blogosphere. I can’t agree. All papal events (liturgical and otherwise) must now be conducted in two hours or less, given the pope’s poor health. Catholic funeral Masses are not supposed to include eulogies (a proscription often ignored in U.S. parishes). 

The logic of the proscription makes considerable theological sense: A eulogy, summarizing the past, is out of place in a Mass of Christian Burial that is liturgically focused on the future, both the future of the soul for whom we beg eternal rest in the light and life of the Trinity, and the eschatological future when Christ returns in glory and the dead in Christ are raised to a new and superabundant form of life, as previewed in the Lord’s Resurrection and Our Lady’s Assumption.

America has a fine article on the eulogy/homily issue in funerals

 Eulogy vs. homily: When should you talk about the deceased in a Catholic funeral?

A big part of the problem when it comes to planning for eulogies is that the funeral liturgy was not designed with them in mind. As H. Richard Rutherford, C.S.C., professor emeritus of liturgical theology at the University of Portland describes, the funeral services were originally designed as a set of three rituals, each of which had a different function in the journey of the deceased from death into eternal life. The vigil or wake came first, and it “was the time to focus on the dead person,” Father Rutherford explains. “In the classic tradition, it was the place where eulogies would happen.”

Then came the funeral Mass, which Father Rutherford says “is not so much what the dead person has done, but what God has done [in their lives] and is now doing, calling them to salvation.” The homily is not meant to remind us of the achievements of the dead, but of the loving welcome of God. Then the burial or committal emphasizes the afterlife.

The problems with the template for the liturgy are practical in my opinion.

Ideally the wake is the place for eulogies. It works if it mainly consists of the family, and if the pastoral assistance in planning for it recognizes the primacy of the family rather than attempting to impose some model upon the wake.

My parents wanted very simple funerals. The wake to be a family- and- close- friends only event lasting a few hours; the funeral to be a public event. Mom and Dad did not have much of a public face, so there was no public that needed a eulogy. All the well-speaking about them could be done within the family and friends gathered at the wake.

The funeral of a member of our Cleveland Commonweal Local Communities was a very different matter. He did have a public face. He was an emeritus professor of a local Catholic high school, and his funeral was celebrated in their chapel not a parish church. He had also taught in local colleges, was devoted to Merton, was an associate of a Trappist monastery, and also practiced Zen Buddhism. His adopted daughter with whom he lived was Asian married to an African American. Not a typical parish member. 

Everyone in his family and friends knew that Wayne loved the CLC. In fact, we held a meeting in his home the night before he passed. So, we were asked to participate in his wake by doing one of the readings. I suggested an alternative. Betty and I would lead Vespers for the Dead at the conclusion of the wake. That was accepted by the family and priest. So, we were able to witness Wayne's CLC connection, his Merton-Trappist connection all at one time.

At the funeral his two grand daughters, beautiful intelligent young Black women, witnessed how his interests played out in his family life.  A woman faculty member, a Buddhist witnessed how his interests played out in her life and in academia. So, by the time Mass began, most of us had a far greater idea of the breadth of his life and interests than we had before. We began to see Wayne through each other's eyes, we had begun experience the total community that Wayne had experienced. 

So, in the case of people with a public identity beyond their family we need to celebrate that not only during the Wake the night before but also before the Mass. If necessary, we should even conduct a service, e.g. Morning Prayer, and have hymns, readings and eulogies before the Mass.  They are all community forming.

Finally, I think there is room for a post internment, or post Mass agape, especially if the person has a public identity. There was one at Wayne's home. It was helpful to meet some of the other people in his life. 

Sometimes these might become periodic mourning events for the family and friends. The Buddhism faculty member expressed some interest in our CLC. Nothing came of it but the potential was there. If we had met in Wayne's home more than once and had come to know his family better, it might have been natural to do that again.  Wayne's death opened my eyes to the possible pastoral dimensions of associations such Commonweal Local Communities and more recently of associations that pray the Hours.

 UPDATE

FULL TEXT: Pope Francis’ homily at Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s funeral Mass

“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk 23:46). These were the final words spoken by the Lord on the cross; his last breath, as it were, which summed up what had been his entire life: a ceaseless self-entrustment into the hands of his Father..... 

“Father into your hands I commend my spirit.” This is the invitation and the programme of life that he quietly inspires in us. Like a potter (cf. Is 29:16), he wishes to shape the heart of every pastor, until it is attuned to the heart of Christ Jesus (cf. Phil 2:5)....

Attuned in prayerful devotion, a devotion silently shaped and refined amid the challenges and resistance that every pastor must face (cf. 1 Pet 1:6-7) in trusting obedience to the Lord’s command to feed his flock (cf. Jn 21:17 ). Like the Master, a shepherd bears the burden of interceding and the strain of anointing his people, especially in situations where goodness must struggle to prevail and the dignity of our brothers and sisters is threatened (cf. Heb 5:7-9). In the course of this intercession, the Lord quietly bestows the spirit of meekness that is ready to understand, accept, hope and risk, notwithstanding any misunderstandings that might result. It is the source of an unseen and elusive fruitfulness, born of his knowing the One in whom he has placed his trust (cf. 2 Tim 1:12). A trust itself born of prayer and adoration, capable of discerning what is expected of a pastor and shaping his heart and his decisions in accord with God’s good time (cf. Jn 21:18): “Feeding means loving, and loving also means being ready to suffer. Loving means giving the sheep what is truly good, the nourishment of God’s truth, of God’s word, the nourishment of his presence.”

Attuned also in devotion sustained by the consolation of the Spirit, who always precedes the pastor in his mission .....

Holding fast to the Lord’s last words and to the witness of his entire life, we too, as an ecclesial community, want to follow in his steps and to commend our brother into the hands of the Father. May those merciful hands find his lamp alight with the oil of the Gospel that he spread and testified to for his entire life (cf. Mt 25:6-7).

At the end of his Pastoral Rule, Saint Gregory the Great urged a friend to offer him this spiritual accompaniment: “Amid the shipwreck of the present life, sustain me, I beseech you, by the plank of your prayer, that, since my own weight sinks me down, the hand of your merit will raise me up.” Here we see the awareness of a pastor who cannot carry alone what in truth he could never carry alone, and can thus commend himself to the prayers and the care of the people entrusted to him. God’s faithful people, gathered here, now accompanies and entrusts to him the life of the one who was their pastor. Like the women at the tomb, we too have come with the fragrance of gratitude and the balm of hope, in order to show him once more the love that is undying. We want to do this with the same wisdom, tenderness, and devotion that he bestowed upon us over the years. Together, we want to say: “Father, into your hands we commend his spirit.”

Benedict, faithful friend of the Bridegroom, may your joy be complete as you hear his voice, now and forever!

My comment: I think Francis decided to give us a model for a homily for a cleric, even a prominent lay person, that avoids the clericalism (elitism) of focusing upon the person's accomplishments but rather on Jesus as a model for discipleship. It does not attempt to erase the cross in either the life of Jesus or his disciples.