No, I don’t mind a brief overview, either.
But I think there was also something to be said for the sort of “standardization” of funerals. When I grew up in New York, prior to Vatican II, it was normally the custom to bring the body into the church the night before, so it was usually present at the daily mass and in fact sometimes the daily mass was actually the funeral mass. This was often for somebody who had no family - one of hte many solitary old people who lived alone in single rooms in parts of Manhattan.
To me, there was always something dignified and solemn about this soul, whom none of us at the mass had probably known in life, being “sent forth upon his journey” at the mass, a solitary, somewhat marginal person being treated with the same respect that everybody else who had families and mourners got.
The coffin was usually open and I remember standing on line next to the it while I waited to go to Communion and looking at this person and saying a prayer for him. It was nice to think that we were all saying prayers for him and his face was being seen for one last time. Then they would close the coffin.
Don’t know if this makes any sense, but that was how I felt about it at the time and I wish some of this solemnity and dignity would come back.
Beautiful.
Thanks for sharing such memories.
Indeed.