![]() ![]() These included arrangements for green burials, where bodies in the ground decompose in compostable caskets. Unlike us, they had talked and read about death, and attended a class on alternatives to standard funerals. ![]() Like most of us, Rich and Sharon hadn’t planned their funeral. The practice of dying at home and family caring for the dead remained common only in rural areas. President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, followed by the public display of his embalmed body, became a major moment in the national marketing of this new death trade.īy the 20th century, undertakers were elevated to a professional class of funeral directors, bodies were seen as a risk to public health and the false narrative spread that families no longer had the right to care for their own. Instead, there was embalming, mass-marketed coffins and transporting bodies long distances. But, as Civil War historian Drew Gilpin Faust writes in her book “This Republic of Suffering,” the huge numbers of young men dying in the war far from home overwhelmed the personal home funeral. With help from their church and community, family members would wash, display the body and dig the grave for their dead. It turns out to be an old American tradition.īefore the Civil War, funerals were a family affair. Sharon was connecting to a movement that had arisen in the 1990s for families to take back responsibility from hired professionals for the caring and mourning of loved ones in the privacy of their homes. He remained there for the next three days clad in a favorite red plaid Pendleton shirt, jeans, moccasins and a much-worn woolen cap, On the second day, his wife, Sharon, put binoculars around his neck, a reminder of his many hours watching the snow geese, hawks, trumpeter swans and bald eagles surrounding his beloved farm. There it was wrapped in a Stewart tartan blanket (his family name) and placed on a table in a window alcove facing Mount Baker. Shortly after he passed, in the emergency room of a hospital in Washington state, his body came home. of your beloved deceased.My wife’s brother Rich died the last week in February. Please contact the parish office to have Mass offered on birthdays, anniversaries, etc. Our Catholic tradition offers the opportunity to have multiple masses offered for the soul of the deceased loved one. Please discuss the restrictions in the Church's Liturgical Calendar with the priest before planning a Memorial Mass. ![]() The custom has arisen by which a private and simple burial precedes a formal gathering of family and friends at a Memorial Mass to remember the deceased. If a Memorial Mass is celebrated, the same care and diligence in selecting the music and readings should be practiced maintaining the sacredness of the Mass. Given the transient nature of modern society, it is often difficult to assemble all the family and friends of the deceased in a timely manner. Secular music during the liturgy is not appropriate.Īgain, in keeping with the sacred nature of the Funeral Liturgy, it is not recommended that eulogies take place during the Mass. Given the secular nature of many of the stories shared during eulogies, the setting of the Mass is not the recommended or appropriate place. Eulogies are recommended at the Wake Service, the Rite of Committal, and the Reception or Gathering of family and friends following the Rite of Committal. ![]() The Funeral Mass is a sacred moment to honor, remember, and pray for the deceased. We will gladly plan the details with you.įamily members should contact our music director at the parish to discuss appropriate music for the Funeral Mass. When the time has come to plan your loved one’s funeral, please contact the Funeral Home of your choice, who will then contact our Parish office at 77 to coordinate the date and time of the Funeral. ![]()
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