When Philip died we had a non-religious funeral. The celebrant – a smartly dressed middle-aged lady – greeted family and friends at the crematorium chapel, inviting anyone who wished to come forward to speak.
A work colleague told us of his distinguished career as a university professor. His daughter told us that he was a marvellous father and family man; another daughter read a touching poem that she had written herself.
After a number of other speeches there was a period of silence. The celebrant told us that if we were religious we might use that time for private prayer. As the coffin slipped out of sight, some light music from one of the shows was played. There were no public prayers, hymns or readings. Philip wasn’t just a nonbeliever, he was an avowed atheist. Any religious content would have been hypocritical and insensitive. This funeral was the right way to say goodbye to Philip.
When Robert died we had a church service. Robert was a senior diocesan clergyman, who sadly died at the height of a flourishing career. The bishop himself gave an appropriate address in the presence of a huge gathering of robed clergy and laity from the diocese.
The service was a traditional requiem mass and committal. The language and content of the service was appropriate. This was the only way to say goodbye to Robert.
When Brenda died we had a different set of circumstances. She belonged to that vast army of occasional churchgoers; we saw her at Christmas and Harvest Thanksgiving and a few times during the year, she supported church activities, bazaars, coffee mornings and so on. She had many friends in the local parish and was just an ordinary church member. Her husband asked for a church service, to which a large number of her family and friends would be coming.
There is a challenge here for the priest. He or she must be sensitive to the feelings of grief and loss and at the same time make the official service meaningful to a congregation of non-believers and half believers, many of whom were coming to church as a rare and exceptional event. As it stands, the language of the liturgy is meaningless to such people; something must be said to meet their troubled minds. The Burial Office in the old Book of Common Prayer is uncompromising in its teaching about the departed:
Forasmuch as it hath pleased almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear sister here departed: we therefore commit her body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.
Book of Common Prayer, 1662 Later revisions of the service have softened this by including prayers for the bereaved such as:
We thank you, Lord God, for the grace you gave to those who lived according to your will and are now at rest. We pray that their good example may encourage and guide us all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Church in Wales: Burial of the Dead, 1987) In saying goodbye to Brenda something needs to be said to bridge the gap between the natural feelings of loss and grief and the formal words of the Burial Office:
Friends we come together today to say goodbye to a very special person. Brenda is known to us all as a loving wife, mother and grandmother and as an important member of this community. We have come to church because Brenda was a member and because it was an important part of her life. But I am sure that the words of the service we are about to use, on their own, will do little to assuage the feelings of loss and grief we share today. Indeed we have found that the way for us to come to terms with such loss and to say our goodbye to those whom we love is to talk about them together before and after the funeral service. It is when we say such things as ‘I remember when Brenda did so and so…’ ‘She was so kind to me when I was unwell’, ‘She loved to have a laugh and always enjoyed the outings we had’; and so on.
Let us not suppose for one second that these memories and experiences we share are not important, indeed they are the most important part of our saying goodbye, our dealing with our grief and loss. But it is also a very religious thing. It is God who speaks to us and through us in the words and shared feelings of our fellow mourners and us. We believe not so much in the God who is out there looking down from a distance as a judge and ruler, but rather we believe in the God who is within us, the God in our hearts and minds, the God who speaks to us through the words of our friends, who tells us that we are loved and remembered and forgiven. It is this God to whom we now turn as we commence the service.
The Venerable David S Lee was the Archdeacon of Llandaff until his retirement in 1997.
Saying Goodbye to Brenda David Lee sent this account of three different funeral services.
David Lee sent this account of three different funeral services.