Funerals

I'm 'filling in' for a colleague who is on sabbatical at the moment. Twice in the last week I've received calls to take services. Last week it was a Thursday morning service, which I couldn't do because my weekday mornings tend to be booked up. This week brought a request to do a funeral, which has already been arranged for Friday, which just happens to be my day off. Normal practice is to get your clergy booked before confirming the service day and time, but the funeral director was having a bit of bother finding out who would be available to do the service. The family have been brilliant, and I won't have to go through that business of having to talk about someone I never met, knowing all the while that the congregation know full well I don't have any personal knowledge of the deceased.

I have enormous sympathy for clergy who are conducting as many as 129 funerals a year. How do they find time to do much more than that? It's unusual for St Silas' to have more than three or four funerals a year. One of the joys of a youthful congregation, I suppose, and one for which I am grateful.

As it turns out I'm MC at a Burns Supper in aid of the Tufa Project that evening (is that business or pleasure?), so I guess I can legitimately change my day off this week.

Comments

[Ryan Dunne]

Since I can't have a St.Silas Star Wars themed gay wedding, I'll have to settle for a funeral ;-).

[Anne]

I know I'm a total sicko but I quite like doing funerals, even if I didn't know the person, which is just as well because in the CofS we get to do it plenty - "the parish funeral". If you do your homework with the family beforehand, you can put together a tribute using material altogether gleaned from their stories and make it as personal and meaningful as possible.
It's still not ideal that you didn't know the deceased but if the family are reaching out in their grief in God's direction by calling in the church rather than the humanist society we can seize the chance to muster as much of God's grace and love and compassion as we can. Sure, they probably won't become Christians instantly and we may never see them again until the next bereavement, but we've shown them the love of God anyway, which is still a pretty cool thing.