From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
At the visitation at a funeral home for an elderly male relative of mine, instead of a family rosary being said, the local parish sent a nondescript religious Sister, who said she’d conduct a prayer service. She advised at the outset that the Sign of the Cross would not be made at the beginning of the funeral Mass today because that would be taken care of at her proceedings, and that her event and the Mass were all of a piece. She then launched into an introductory prayer as one does at the beginning of Mass, without her or us making the sign of the cross. At one point in this proceeding, she announced she would inscribe a cross on the forehead of the deceased, and then did so.
Is this something that the Church really promotes nowadays, or is it all a nostrum of the Sister’s Pastor, who was once described by our disgraced, former Bishop, unironically, as “an innovative liturgist”?
GUEST PRIEST RESPONSE: Fr. Tim Ferguson
The “wake” service is authentic (although I always prefer the rosary) and the whole concept of it being one continuous liturgy – from the wake, through the funeral, through the burial – is there in the books. It’s an innovation to explain each step along the way what one is doing, but that is consistent with the liturgical books – it is an option, if a stupid one. “now I’m making the sign of the cross. Now I’m sitting down. Now I’m twirling like a whirling dervish.” And it is authorized in the books that the wake and the burial can be done by someone other than a priest (which, to me, is inconsistent with the principle that it’s one liturgy – if it’s one continuous liturgy, then it should have one consistent “presider,” but logical coherence isn’t a hallmark of the reformed liturgical rites).
Fr. Z adds:
From my old pastor, I learned that a wake is the Rosary, speaking for maybe a minute, talking to the family, and getting out of the way.
