Q: I just stumbled on to your blog and have a question. I’ve noticed a strong trend lately that when a person dies, while the family dutifully sees that the full Catholic funeral rites are celebrated, only the very immediate family are invited to attend and a celebration of life or prayer service is held for friends and extended family. Is this becoming the new standard practice?
In my experience, these services are warm and reverent and most often include clergy or religious leading prayers, though unlike the wake before the funeral, tend to take place afterwards — sometimes two weeks later and sometimes immediately after the funeral Mass in the church.
My parents taught me you never go wrong praying for the dead. But they also lived in a world where most of their friends and neighbors were Catholic, the parish priests knew the people, and the priest was better educated than the laity. Today, none of these things are the case in my community, so maybe these social changes is why.
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A: Funeral practices have changed quite a bit over the last few decades, and they don’t seem to be settled yet. The Catholic Church’s Order of Christian Funerals still prefers three stages: a Vigil service, a Funeral Mass, and interment at the cemetery. But these customs are on shaky ground.
I wrote about all this in my book Light in the Darkness: Preparing Better Catholic Funerals.