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Wednesday, March 6, 2019

WHAT TO DO? WHAT TO DO ? OH, WHAT ARE WE TO DO!?

This drives me INSANE!

Once again I read an obituary from a far off distant newspaper about a Catholic’s funeral arrangements.

And what was the Requiem called?

 

A CELEBRATION OF LIFE MASS!!!!!!!


Isn’t it wonderful the family takes so seriously our Ash Wednesday admonition, REMEMBER MAN, THOU ART DUST AND UNTO DUST THOU SHALT RETURN!

Yah! We need this rather than Requiems:


13 comments:

Dan said...

Father you are so old-fashioned in your thinking, and not open at all to the God of surprises.

The Catholic Church has completely changed in just the past couple years.

SURPRISE!!

TJM said...

Is that a movie of Anonymous' funeral? I would understand the joy

Anonymous Still Living said...

Since we pray, officially, at the time of death...


"Into your hands, O Lord,
we humbly entrust our brother/sister N.
In this life you embraced him/her with your tender love;
deliver him/her now from every evil
and bid him/her enter eternal rest.

The old order has passed away:
welcome him/her then into paradise,
where there will be no sorrow, no weeping nor pain,
but the fullness of peace and joy
with your Son and the Holy Spirit
forever and ever.
R/. Amen."

Yes, let there be joy in the forgiven sinner resting where there is no sorrow, weeping, or pain. That is most understandable joy, is it not?

Anonymous said...

As a priest, I for one gave up a few years ago, the wearing of white or even violet vestments at funerals.I wear only black and hope that the sight of that, along with my preaching about Purgatory will get people back to praying for the souls of those who have died.

TJM said...

Anonymous at 3:00 PM

You are definitely NOT Kavanaugh. We pray that you keep up the re-invigoration of the Catholic Faith.

John Nolan said...

Anonymous Still Living

Your two modern prayers encapsulate all that is wrong with the current 'official' funeral rites. They drip saccharine pietism and conveniently ignore the reality of sin and judgement.

They won't upset family and friends, which is the main thing.

The Roman Ritual has at the moment of death the responsory 'Subvenite', and after asking that the soul of the deceased may be delivered from the gates of hell and may rest in peace, there is the following prayer:

Tibi, Domine, commendamus animam famuli tui N. ut defunctus saeculo tibi vivat: et quae per fragilitatem humanae conversationis peccata commisit, tu venia misericordissimae pietatis absterge. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

TJM said...

John Nolan,

Please provide a translation for Anonymous Still Living/Kavanaugh. I suspect he never took Latin, or if if did, he never mastered it.

Fortunately my family knows my wishes for the Missa pro Defunctis. Nothing ersatz for me.

John Nolan said...

TJM

Fr Kavanaugh has informed us on previous occasions that he has enough Latin to be able to celebrate a NOM in that language, but chooses not to do so. That's fair enough; I find his reasons spurious, and have said why, but I don't wish to go over old ground or encourage him to do the same.

I don't have a bilingual Rituale, but it doesn't take a Latinist to work out that we are commending the soul of the deceased to God, acknowledging that he has sinned on account of the weakness of human nature, and asking God in his infinite mercy to wipe away those sins.

TJM said...

John Nolan,

You are a trusting man. I would want to put Kavanaugh to the test! I can't understand his lack of compassion and liberality on this point. I guess he would not go out and look for the 1 of the 99. Tisk, tisk

John Nolan said...

TJM

I'm not really interested in what Modernist clergy have to say. I have little sympathy with those who whether in theory or practice give the impression that the Church began in 1965.

However, anyone with half a brain can realize that the 'official' prayer at the moment of death is problematic, to say the least. 'Deliver him/her now from every evil' is a case in point. Is it a bowdlerization of 'A porta inferi erue, Domine, animam ejus' by a redactor who 'never mentions hell to ears polite'? (see Alexander Pope). We ask to be delivered from evil in this life, in other words to refrain from sin. But once we are dead we can no longer sin.

Most people who espouse traditional Catholic teaching concentrate on the distortions in the Mass, and forget the worse distortions in the ritual books, the so-called reform of which was still being carried out decades after the Council. Louis Bouyer said that the liturgy of the dead was 'scuppered' by some dubious characters. The current funeral rites are a disgrace and no Catholic should have anything to do with them. Fortunately, we have a choice in the matter.

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

The Book of Blessings that came out in the late 80’s is horrible. Most of the blessing prayers don’t bless what is to be blessed.

The Roman Missal’s option one of two for the blessing of the ashes wasn’t directed to the ashes but rather to those who received these. If the ashes had been blessed at an earlier Mass, with the actual blessing of the ashes, option 2, then using option 1 makes some sense.

Anonymous said...

"...deliver him/her now from every evil and bid him/her enter eternal rest."

"Evil" is not only sin - your view is far too narrow. Evil can be and most certainly is 1) the suffering of Purgatory or 2) the eternal separation from God in Hell.

Once we are dead we can no longer sin. But even then we can suffer evil. The prayer asks for mercy in that regard.

Unless you think praying for souls to be released from Purgatory - surely an "evil" since it involves suffering - are unnecessary of not efficacious.

John Nolan said...

My point exactly. Keep it vague and non-specific and no-one will get upset. Then put your own gloss on it. The Novus Ordo in a nutshell.