There appears no sense in dying anymore, especially if one is living in a Roman Catholic diocese run by a bishop who chooses to adhere to the strictness of the Vatican book rather than listen to the strings of a more pastoral heart.
Bishop Richard W. Smith recently issued “newly revised guidelines,” not only for Roman Catholic funerals, but for the disposal of the dearly departed should cremation be chosen as the method of dealing with the loved one’s body.
Those guidelines, in fact, filled two pages.
And they removed all fun from dying.
About the only good thing about funerals, at least in my book, are the eulogies given by friends and family that aid and abet the mourning process, and open the memory bank to the times when life was played out in technicolour.
Joy, at a funeral, is presented by tears mixed with laughter.
When I die, I want them rolling in the aisles.
Unless I find a Catholic priest who is willing to bend the rules, however, this will not happen.
In the Ecclesia newspaper, it was explained this way:
“The word ‘eulogy’ refers to speech or writing that offers high
praise, particularly for one who has died,” the document begins.
“When Christians gather for the funeral Mass, we do so to praise
God the Father. We gather not to praise the deceased but to pray
for them. For this reason, eulogies are not given.”
Well, I disagree. God gets His fair share of praise and, while more praise is always good, we go to funerals not because of God but because of the person who died. Otherwise, why go to funerals?
And then there is the decree about the music that can be played at Catholic funerals — one which now bans secular or recorded music as being “not appropriate in church.”
This, too, is disturbing.
As someone who has sung Stand By Me on virtually every continent except Antarctica, and this is with or without a couple of gins under my belt, it will be in my last will and testament that it be played at my funeral as they wheel my still-warm ashes out the front door.
In fact, I will hopefully be the one singing it — having already set into motion having it recorded on a CD, a project necessitated by the loss of the tape which had me performing my “signature tune” at the ultra-posh Maple Leaf Ball in London back in 1989, and accompanied by a 12-piece orchestra, no less.
So, what now? Have it blaring from the hearse?
And, speaking about ashes, what about them?
According to these “recently-revised” Guidelines for the Celebration of Funerals :
“scattering cremated remains over water, in the air, on the
ground, separating them for placement in different locations, or
keeping them in homes, does not display appropriate Christian
reverence and hope, and should therefore not be done.”
This throws another spanner into the works.
There is a lake in northern Saskatchewan, for example, named Bonokoski Lake — named in honour of my father’s first cousin, Daniel Bonokoski, an RCAF officer who was shot down during a bombing mission over Berlin near the end of the World War II.
I made a pilgrimage to that lake some years ago, flying there in a bush plane from a remote village on the border of the Northwest Territories, and then I wrote about for a Remembrance Day issue of this newspaper.
And I want some of my ashes tossed in that lake, and a few more into Baptiste Lake, outside Bancroft, where my family now makes its home.
The rest can go in an urn — a big urn, since I am claustrophobic — and buried in the family plot at St. Francis Xavier Cemetery in Brockville, next to my father and my brother.
I once joked that I wanted my ashes put in pepper shakers and distributed in restaurants across the country.
But I’ve since changed my mind.
Perhaps the church will see this as a concession on my part, and loosen up on the eulogy and the music.
Otherwise, what’s the sense of dying?