A funeral mass

I attended the funeral of my husband's aunt and uncle. They died about six months apart, and each was cremated. The aunt was the one that was the more dedicated Catholic. According to the Catholic church, in order to be buried in a Catholic cemetery, they had to have a Catholic mass. So they did. It turned out that even though they were being buried together, with one service and one priest officiating, the family was required to pay for two funerals. WTG Catholic church! Gotta pay for those legal fees somehow I suppose.

The Catholic mass is long, boring, and robotic. I hate it. I think I've always hated it, even when I was a good Catholic. I remember all the prayers and responses since I've had so many years of it being crammed into my head, but this time I didn't say one word. It wouldn't have been genuine. It's not like anyone noticed or cared. Most people didn't speak or sing anyway.

The sermon was nice. The priest seemed to know the deceased, and spoke of them from memory. Most of the sermon was more of a trip down memory lane instead of being about the scripture that was just read. I thank him for that!

When it came time to kneel, I didn't. I probably should have, but it didn't feel right to me. I wondered if the family members who know I'm atheist were looking to see what I'd do during the mass. But I didn't really care.

At the reception afterwards, I talked to one of the daughters of the deceased and told her how lovely the service was. And I meant it. I've been to so many services where the agenda was teaching the scripture, and not so much about the life of the deceased. I'm sure part of it is that these priests probably don't really know their parishioners well enough to speak of them so they use a generic sermon.

It reminds me of my mother's funeral. She wasn't a regular at Sunday mass, and I didn't get the sense that she spent any time after mass talking to the priests. So when we had a church service for her, I was interested in seeing how it was handled since they probably didn't know her.

We met with the priest beforehand to plan the service. That meant choosing readings and hymns from a little pamphlet. The bible means nothing to me so I was basically going to pick something short and sweet. My son volunteered to do the readings, but he wanted to choose his own, rather than be limited to that pamphlet. The priest said no. I was rather shocked by that. So my son had to read something he didn't really want to and I know why. It's because there are carefully scripted sermons behind the readings in the pamphlet. The sermon would be generic. Perfect for a parishioner that he didn't even know. Easy for the priest. I was actually pissed about this. But for me, the mass was just a formality. It was expected. It was more for the living than the deceased. The people in attendance had no clue it was a scripted, generic sermon. But I know. Now I know, and I will never look at a Catholic funeral mass the same.