I just sent this reponse to the Courier which demonstrates my actual thinking:
I was somewhat saddened to read headlines suggesting I have a desire to attack those who mourn. As a priest it is my duty to care for those who grieve and, as those who have encountered my ministry will testify, it is something I do to the best of my ability. Nor was it my desire to knock people’s taste in music. It is of course quite possible, and often even fitting, to include a whole range of music (even Tina Turner!!!) within a funeral service. And I am only ever delighted if such music is a comfort to those who mourn. Please understand that when, in my blog, I attacked ‘Tina Turner –esque funerals’ I was actually seeking to raise a question which is important for all society – ‘what are funerals for?’
As a priest I believe the answer is two-fold. Firstly to offer an opportunity to say good bye and secondly to offer loved ones into the hands of a living God, praying that sins may be forgiven and that they may be granted eternal life. What I often bemoan is that this latter point is slipping away, being wholly eclipsed by the former. I do not believe, as the popular poem states that ‘death is nothing at all’, rather it is a hugely important thing that can shatter lives and requires very sensitive and spiritual handling.
In my blog I also agreed with the humanist you spoke to. If there is no desire for this Christian dimension then why have the priest? It was only when speaking of this scenario that I reminisced about feeling ‘lemon like’ and able to think of better uses of my time. As a priest I delight in offering any stranger the full ministries of the church, but why would I need to be present if we are only saying goodbye to someone I do not know? I am not, like the humanist, running a business and seeking financial gain from funerals. Rather I was and am ordained for the advancement of God’s kingdom on earth.
It is precisely because I do care about people, living and departed, that I spoke out. It is my passionate belief that a requiem mass and the Christian prayers of ‘commendation and committal’ are not mere aesthetic choices in a market place of funeral options. Rather something real and significant is happening, on earth and in heaven, when these take place. Because I am a priest, I want to point the way to Jesus Christ. Naturally there will be those who disagree with my beliefs, I think they should have the right to exercise this choice even though I believe them to be misguided. But if this is your position, why invite me to the party?
With very best wishes
Father Ed Tomlinson
Dear Fr Ed,
You have got the debate going, which is commendable. This was the case many years ago when the then Bishop of Durham aired his views on the Resurrection, the Virgin Birth etc. The talk was not only in the newspapers, but in the pubs and clubs. He was villified in the press, but what comment and discussion there was in the wider community.
However where do you stop? You believe in no women priests in the church. There is a church for that. It is the Catholic church. Yet you wish to be married and have children. Cake and eating it comes to mind. May be you should take up the Holy Father’s invitation?
Where would your stance on funerals stop? Would you refuse to baptise a child whose parents were non church goers, or non-believers? Surely you would not stop an innocent soul from being accepted into the church. Why then would you comment on the poor dead person or the family mourning at a funeral. It isn’t your place to presume you know what is in people’s hearts and souls. That’s God’s job. You need to gently guide and show the right way. If just one soul is saved, just one person finds God or returns to church, your job is well done.
I have no doubt you do a good job for your parisioners. You know I know you from Brentwood. I went to school with you. Your heart is good. I find pop songs and bad peotry in church awful. I play the organ for many weddings and funerals as well as children’s services and the full range of communions and styles found in a variety of churches. Different people need different things. What they get out of worship or by just being there is individual to them. I see people in church at weddings, funerals or just a cub, scout and guide service, the Christingle, a school service etc who might never have been to church or go again. Just occasionally something miraculous happens and they turn to God. Surly the church should not be seaking to put up blocks and barriers, but to help break down what is there – to help people get over the barriers that exist. However that happens, it is a good thing.
We are all different, we all need different things. Even the 3 main Abrahamic religions all worship the same God. Many varieties of ways, but to the same end. Focus on each religion. Variation across countries and cultures. Within the the same country, sects, styles. Withing the same church different opinions and ideas.
You are a trained teacher. You know people learn in different styles. Is one better than another because in one it looks ordered an another looks like disorder just because the untrained eye cannot see what is going on.
Please examine why you are doing this. If it is to create discussion, you have done so. If it puts anyone off from returning to or finding God, have you obeys your holy orders or just been selective in how you apply them
Your friend Nick Rayner
I’m a practicing Christian. I have to practice because I’m not awfully good at it. When I die, the kind of funeral I would like would hopefully celebrate my Christian life and the music would be appropriate.
My dear friend of some 30 years died a couple of years ago. He was a spiritualist and his faith was just as important to him as mine is to me. His funeral was officiated by (of all things) someone of the american indian faith. The music that sent his coffin into the furnace was “Shine on you Crazy Diamond”.
It was an entirely appropriate celebration of my friend’s life and values. It would have been completely wrong for a traditional “vicar led funeral” and my friend would have hated it. It was a great service. We rejoiced in having known a good man and mourned for our loss.
So why the “Daily Mail element” feels they need to attack Fr. Edward’s comments is beyond me. If you want a Christian service, then accept what goes with it. If you don’t want such a service we are now blessed by all kinds of alternatives.
Thanks Fr. Ed. for sticking your head above the parapet. Funerals are all about celebrating a life, and if celebrating that life in a Christian context, then it is entirely right that the service should be about faith, life and what happens afterward – and appropriate music too.
- Tony
We had Somewhere Over The Rainbow at my grandma’s crem. but we had 3 or 4 hymns at the church.
I think because the crem is used by so many different faiths here they are reluctant to have “religious songs”. We had three hymns at my Friends wedding on Sunday and I only knew the first and that was Morning Has Broken the other two I only just knew somewhere in the back of my mind and I’ve been attending church my whole life.
With tongue somewhat in cheek, as god saw fit to give Frank Sinatra one of the greatest singing voices of any popular singer, then thank god for ‘My Way’ at Humanist funerals.
Dear Fr Ed,
Your original comment was a needed one. In Sweden we have not only a secularised society, but also a increasingly secularised church. There are some reactions against this, and as a Christian I celebrate them. For instance, my local church council has decided not to offer funeral acts to people who are not members of the Swedish Church /(which was separated from the state a few years ago). Not to be exclusive, but to give the act of leaving, or not entering, the church some meaning. Regardless of the will of the family, it is presumed that a non-religious person doesn’t want to be involved in religious acts.
An other perspective on your reflection is the actual songs you underline. “I did it my way” doesn’t really reflect what Christ said about our mission on earth. We should rather sing, “I tried to do it the way the Lord meant it to be”.
Yours faithfully,
A Swedish Christian
Dear Fr,
what a wonderful witness who have given, although you have had to bear a terrible cross, to telling the truth with regards funeral services today. As a priest and a qualified funeral director I have come across many funerals that I wouldn’t have offered for my dead cat!
The Catholic funeral liturgy (I cannot speak for the anglican liturgy as I do not know it) has such depth to it – praying for the remission of sin, the happy repose of the soul and giving thanks to God for the life the person has led – covers every aspect needed.
Recently at a ecumenical gathering of clergy, I heard the Catholic priests were belittled and berated by the reformed and anglican clergy present for the Catholic liturgy and the lack of giving into family wishes (regarding ballons, doves, butterflies, whiskey being poured into the grave on top of the coffin and the usual top of the pops greatest hits).
Be assured of my prayers at this difficult time, and know that you are not alone in this issue.
“I am not, like the humanist, running a business and seeking financial gain from funerals”
My mother died a month ago and this Monday was her humanist funeral. The humanist celebrant who conducted the ceremony was amazing. He spent so much time with us, the family, that, given his modest fee, I dread to think what his hourly rate worked out as. He couldn’t have been more concerned that the funeral reflect her life and values – which is certainly did. There was a section in the service for reflection, which those with religious beliefs were invited to use for prayer if they wished.
Several people remarked to me afterwards that they had never been to a non-religious funeral before. They had worried that it would seem cold or detached, but they all said how beautiful, personal and entirely appropriate it had been.
Everybody should be able to have the sort of funeral that is appropriate for them and their family. Those organising the ceremony should be paid accordingly. Most importantly, we should not judge others on how they grieve.
I read with interest of your objection to the trend of the increasing secularization of funerals. Absolutely. It seems extraordinary to me that a song such as ‘I Did it My Way’ be included in a Christian service. While the egoistic sentiments expressed in the words of that song may well sum up the spirit in which some have indeed chosen to live their lives, rejecting the Spirit of Christ who came to do not His own will (His ‘own thing’) but the will of His Father (which involved sacrifice) they surely can have no place in a life built on a confession of faith in the Crucified and Risen Christ. A faith which contradicts the world’s values and exhorts that we become servants of one another and slaves of God. Doing things ‘my way’ might seem a good idea to those of other credal persuasions or of none, but is nevertheless a mantra that rather neatly encapsulates precisely what Christianity is not about.
While humanitarian concern is central to a life of Godliness, so too (and more fundamentally so) is faith. And we are not talking faith in people, or in policies, or creation, or in societies. Christian faith is a supernatural gift implanted at Baptism. The measure in which this faith is nurtured and allowed to grow and find expression in a person’s life is surely the measure in which the rewards of faith (among them eternal beatitude) are consequently to be enjoyed. There is a correlation here, surely, that cannot be missed in the pages of the New Testament.
So, while the Church is and must be humanitarian in its concerns, for the sake of God and the Kingdom, it can never be a blandly humanist organization. The life of grace, and therefore of eternal blessedness, are co-dependent on those articles of faith which are no indeterminate, inclusivist propositions. They articulate belief is a number of rather unlikely things. If eternal life is to be enjoyed as a result of these beliefs (beliefs that take a certain amount of deliberation) surely it is they, the beliefs themselves, that needs must take centre stage here, and not the individual ego?
While I certainly wish all people well, feel for the grieving, and sincerely hope that all may come to the full enjoyment of everlasting bliss, I can only feel most uncomfortable that a specific, credal religion such as ours is being used as a platform for an individualism based on entirely different beliefs or none. If Christianity means anything it is not about doing things ‘my way’ but about living life to the full in obedience of Him who came not to do His own will, but the will of the One who sent Him. Have we lost this belief?
Andrea Bocelli is truly a master. He has a super great voice that sounds heavenly..,*