Plan ahead

In this morning’s New York Times I came upon an advertisement by an antiques dealer for an “Irish Wake Table.” With apologies to our Irish readers, I must admit that I had never heard of such a thing before. The long, drop leaf table is specially designed to be able not only to serve dinner, but also to support a coffin.

In the “denial of death” culture in which we live, it was startling to see. To me as a Catholic, however, it makes perfect sense.

What struck me was the close connection between life and death, between eating together and taking leave of this life. The axis of the whole Christian life is Eucharist: a meal at which the death of Jesus is celebrated, remembered, made present, and his life poured out for us. Life and death are intertwined, at the same table.

God bless the Irish. The roots of the Irish wake may be pre-Christian (I am assured of this by various websites) but they’ve got that paschal thing down. It’s incarnated — inculturated — even in the furniture.

I like it.

Rita Ferrone

Rita Ferrone is an award-winning writer and frequent speaker on issues of liturgy and church renewal in the Roman Catholic tradition. She is currently a contributing writer and columnist for Commonweal magazine and an independent scholar. The author of several books about liturgy, she is most widely known for her commentary on Sacrosanctum Concilium (Liturgy: Sacrosanctum Concilium, Paulist Press). Her most recent book, Pastoral Guide to Pope Francis's Desiderio Desideravi, was published by Liturgical Press.

Please leave a reply.

Comments

8 responses to “Plan ahead”

  1. Alan Hommerding

    A number of European cultures “waked” the departed in the home. My maternal grandfather (Luxembourg) and paternal grandmother (German) were. Having a “home” or a “parlor” just for funerals, run as a separate/independent business was a first step in the distancing/sanitizing/denying of death phenomenon in the surrounding culture.

    Reply
  2. Karl Liam Saur

    Must have been for the lace-curtain Irish; the rest used chairs if they had them.

    My mother remembered attending the wake of her uncle in 1929 when she was 5 years old: at some point in the proceedings, they stood the coffin up in the corner and drank to the deceased. (There were no details about keeners being present.)

    In mid-19th century Boston townhouses, the staircases often retain what are called coffin corners – to rest the coffin while carrying it level to level. Have to design staircases – and furniture – carefully…there’s a reason the backs of sofas not at a 90-degree angle to the floor – makes it easier to angle them around turns in a tight 19th century staircase.

    Reply
  3. Fr. Neil Xavier O'Donoghue

    Although I have never heard of an Irish Wake Table here in Ireland. The vast majority of the funerals here in Dundalk, Co. Louth, Ireland, still have a wake at home. The undertaker helps the family prepare the sitting room for the wake (removing excess furniture and adding candlesticks, a cross and extra chairs). The the coffin is taken into the house (placed on the regular wheeled stand that is also used in churches). The coffin is left along one of the walls of the sitting room (open) and for the next day or two friends and neighbours come to visit the family and pay their respects. The priest also visits the home a few times for prayers. Oftentimes the family still keeps vigil with their loved one all night long. It is a beautiful custom and it helps make death natural and to encourage a healthy grieving process (children are often in the room as well). Honestly I find it much better than the practices I saw in my years of ministry in New Jersey, where everything to do with death was too perfect and sterile and not human enough.

    Reply
  4. Peter King

    curious, the longtime sexton of my church, a director of the most prominent funeral home in the neighborhood, was waked in his bed at home. this was in the early 1990s, iirc.

    and speaking of old Ireland: my mother, a native of mayo, passed two years ago at 101. on her deathbed she asked us (my cousins and I) if we had seen the banshee. we told her that we’d called the front desk and told them not to let the banshee up (she too expired at home.) here i was in 21st century new york, listening to premodern ireland.

    Reply
    1. Tony Phillips

      @Peter King:
      Peter, I’ve just seen the banshee, and she is us.

      Reply
  5. Paul Inwood

    In Wales (and other cultures, too), the sin-eater would come round and eat dinner off the dead person’s chest in the coffin. He would thereby take on all the sins of everyone off whose dead body he ate a meal, thus sparing them punishment and damnation in the afterlife. He was paid a fee, but was shunned by the rest of the community and lived in isolation.

    The problem was, who would take over from the sin-eater when he died? The sin-eater “contained” not only his own sins and all those sins he had “eaten” but also the inherited accumuation of sins from the chest of the sin-eater that he himself had rescued from eternal damnation. And so on, back over the generations. A massive accumulation of sinfulness, for those who believed in all this. The sin-eater would surely find eternal damnation if someone else could not be found to take on the mantle.

    And now, please return to your normal programing.

    Reply
  6. Todd Orbitz

    I heard the banshee wail when my Grandmother passed in 1988. It was clear as day. My mother, father, 2 of my brothers and 4 of my sisters were at home. No one else was there. All of us heard it.

    Reply
  7. Todd Orbitz

    I should have also written that my grandmother was an O’Grady. The Irish will understand.

    Reply

Posted

in

, ,

by

Rita Ferrone

Tags:

Discover more from Home

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading