First of all the official name of the Funeral Mass is a misnomer. For so many souls today, as well as their bodies, there is no burial because of cremation. So let’s change the official name to Requiem Mass. The Latin term is better than the English word “rest” or Rest Mass. Mass of the Dead sounds too macabre and it certainly is not the Mass of the Resurrection unless it is Easter Sunday or its Octave.
Make violet or black the normative color for adult funerals and white for children’s funerals.
Eliminate the Alleluia at any time in the Mass or hymns that are chosen. Specifically use the Lenten Gospel Acclamation not the Alleluia.
Use the traditional endings for the Agnus Dei at Requiem Masses, ...grant them rest; grant them rest, grant them eternal rest.
No lay eulogies after Holy Communion or before the Mass—these to take place at the funeral home before or after the Vigil for the Deceased.
Eliminate having an Old Testament Reading, Psalm and then Epistle. Only have Epistle (or Old Testament reading) Gradual or Responsorial Psalm and Gospel as in a daily Mass.
What else?
4 comments:
A Mass is designated by the first word(s) of its Introit. Unless a Mass begins 'Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine' it cannot be called a Requiem Mass. Translate 'Missa pro defunctis' any way you like - only a non-Christian attitude to death would regard it as 'macabre'.
The 'Lenten Gospel Acclamation' is a novelty and an abomination in that (in the Lectionary but not in the Graduale) it replaces the very ancient Tract. So much for the Novus Ordo returning to older models - it was always a conceit and a deceit.
The Novus Ordo specifies the Alleluia outside of Lent. It is not always observed, since when the traditional chants are used for the Gradual, Tract and Sequence (always an option) the Tract replaces it.
The last vernacular Mass I attended (December 2018) was a funeral Mass. It was quite decently done, but hearing eulogies delivered during Mass by grandchildren who were not even Catholic seemed out of place.
My own obsequies will be in the traditional rite and I would like on my tombstone a skull and bones with the memento mori: Quod es, eram. Quod sum, eris. Sadly the lack of even elementary Latin among otherwise educated people would probably require a translation.
I plan on the traditional rite as well - no "celebration" of my life
Rather than try to change all that, it would be far easier if everyone simply stopped dying.
About same odds of either happening, as first it would need go to a subcommittee on committees at the USCCB for examination by other committees before the break-out sessions to decide on when to decide if even to decide to examine the issue for a decision.
That alone will take 4yrs, $23.5 million, and fund college education for 15.6 USCCB staffer children, where the parent of the 0.4 child left out will object as this being descriminatory, and it will return to pre-committee on committees.
Father Mac, your recommendations are spot on; but given our "hip--to-the-jive" episcopate, you bestn't hold your breath.
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