Category: Funerals/Burial
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Brief Book Review: Guide for Forming a Parish Bereavement Ministry
A concrete example of how to do liturgical/sacramental theology with the Church’s rites as a starting point, and how to incarnate that theology in the spiritual life of the parish and its members.
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Brief Book Review: Death by Baptism
Honeycutt confronts head-on truncated understandings of baptism as “fire insurance” against eternity in hell or as supernatural guarantee against misfortune.
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Online Lecture on Catholic Funerals in Light of Secularism, Covid and other Challenges.
The Catholic Church’s Order of Christian Funerals has not changed over the past few decades while the culture surrounding funerals has.
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Black Vestments
When I was ministering in the United States (mainly Newark, NJ and Tri-State area), I never came across black vestments in use in the liturgy. It was a theoretic option for November 2 and Funeral Masses/Masses for the Dead, but I have never actually seen it in use or had a family request it. In…
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Liturgies at the Passing of a Loved One—Part III
The Liturgies at the Passing of a Loved One I have lost three loved ones in the past 18 months. First, my mother died suddenly and unexpectedly (and, I suggest, prematurely) of a stroke. Then, months later, a dear friend of some 40 years was diagnosed with a terminal illness and died after a prolonged…
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Webinar from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music to Launch June 21
The series is entitled, “Accompanying the Dying and the Dead in the Time of COVID”
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Yale Offers Summer Course in Music for Funerals
Professor Markus Rathey of the Yale Institute of Sacred Music will be offering a virtual one-week summer course on funeral music through the ages, as part of the Yale Divinity School summer programs. The course will be offered June 7-11, and is open to anyone, anywhere. Here is the title and description: Sounds of Death…
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“I want Westlife played at my funeral”
Many people outside Ireland still tend to think of Ireland as a Catholic country. However, I think that the days of identifying Irishness with Catholicism are long gone. I was listening to the radio yesterday morning and a report on a news program brought this home to me once again. The dignified funeral of England’s…
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Church and State, Remembrance and Commendation: The Funeral of HRH Prince Philip
Watching the funeral of Prince Philip today (like so many people around the world) elicited a sequence of often-conflicting emotions in this liturgist. In my case, I was glued to CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company). The funeral played on multiple channels in Canada, not surprising, recalling that Canada is a member of the Commonwealth, (and a…