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Views from the Choir Loft

Wakes in Church & Funerals at the Parlor

Fr. David Friel · November 2, 2014

N MANY QUARTERS, those involved in parish life and pastoral care have been experiencing a definite trend. I won’t call the trend “alarming,” but “unfortunate” and “ill-conceived” would be good descriptors. The trend concerns the location of funerals.

In the “old days,” when a member of a Catholic family died, a wake might have been held in the family home—a sort of open house. The purpose of this event was to gather as a family to mourn, tell stories, and say a few prayers together to aid in the process of corporate grief. Eventually, the age of funeral parlors arose, and these homes then became the place for wakes. A day or more after the wake, there would be a funeral Mass in the local parish church. The purpose of this event was to pray for the happy repose of the deceased, to apply the merits of Christ’s Passion to the soul of the deceased, and to pray for healing & peace among the surviving family, friends, & neighbors.

Nowadays, priests & deacons & members of bereavement committees are faced with an entirely different situation. In fact, the situation is often the reverse of what makes sense.

More and more, families are requesting that funeral prayers be offered at the funeral parlor; meanwhile, other families desire to hold the wake in church. Judging from this state of affairs, we seem to have forgotten the purpose of church buildings and funeral parlors. The trouble with funerals at funeral parlors is that they omit the Mass; the trouble with wakes in church is that they reduce a sacred space to a gathering space, often leading to noise & activity unbecoming of the Lord’s house. These mismatched locations are neither appropriate nor conducive. (I have heard of some priests trying to reclaim the sacredness of the church space by offering confessions when they have a wake in church; this strikes me as an interesting idea, though not a thorough solution.)

The structure of the Order of Christian Funerals ritual book can teach us a few lessons. For example, the first part of the funeral liturgy is the Vigil (the prayers to be prayed during the wake), which is followed by the “Transfer of the Body to the Church.” That there should be a transfer to the church is a clear sign that the ritual does not envision a viewing in the church building.

In the Order of Christian Funerals, one also finds an option provided for what is called a “Funeral Liturgy outside Mass.” This form of the funeral service is clearly not preferable, inasmuch as it omits the sacrifice of Holy Mass, which is the most essential element of the “fraternal offices of burial.” The introduction to this section of the ritual book (#178) suggests very limited occasions for its use:

1. When the funeral Mass is not permitted, namely, on solemnities of obligation, on Holy Thursday and the Easter Triduum, and on the Sundays of Advent, Lent, and the Easter Season;
2. When in some places or circumstances it is not possible to celebrate the funeral Mass before the committal, for example, if a priest is not available;
3. When for pastoral reasons the pastor and the family judge that the funeral liturgy outside Mass is a more suitable form of celebration.

Even narrower is the language of the following paragraph (#179), which states: “The funeral liturgy outside Mass is ordinarily celebrated in the parish church, but may also be celebrated in the home of the deceased, a funeral home, parlor, chapel of rest, or cemetery chapel.” I have never seen the funeral liturgy outside Mass celebrated in a church, and I would guess that this seldom actually occurs. Without a doubt, this rubric clearly underscores the fundamental significance of the location of the funeral rites.

The reasons I commonly hear families give for requesting a priest to offer the service at the funeral home are very different. Among them are these:

1. The deceased never went to church anyway.
2. Using the church costs too much.
3. It would be easier for [name-an-infirm-relative] to have it all in one day at one location.

Certainly, families sometimes have other reasons, too, but these are the most common explanations I hear for why a family is requesting a funeral service at the parlor. Obviously there is a marked disconnect between the reasons proffered by families and the parameters established by the ritual.

Much of the trouble stems from people having lost a basic understanding of what a funeral is. A Catholic funeral is not a “life celebration.” Despite what many funeral homes try to market, a Catholic funeral is not a celebration of the deceased person’s human life. You often hear it said, “A funeral is for the family, not for the deceased.” In the Catholic framework, however, this is simply not true. A Catholic funeral is very much for the deceased, and only secondarily for the comfort of those who are left behind.

In the minds of many people, the essential component of a funeral is the eulogy. This is an issue we have addressed elsewhere. Whereas words of remembrance often are the essential element of Protestant funerals, this is never the case with the funeral of a Catholic. The essential element of a Catholic funeral is always and everywhere the efficacious sacrifice of Christ as re-presented in the Mass. It is, therefore, a matter of justice to arrange a funeral Mass for one who is deceased.

Restoring funerals & wakes to their proper locations will only be achieved at the grassroots level. Parishes need to help families making funeral arrangements to understand the background of these matters. Priests need to teach their parishioners and parents need to teach their children that location matters.

As my mother often told me, there is an appropriate time—and place—for everything.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Requiem Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel is a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and serves as Director of Liturgy at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary. —(Read full biography).

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President’s Corner

    PDF Download • “Polyphonic Extension” (Kevin Allen) for Gloria III
    EVIN ALLEN was commissioned by Sacred Music Symposium 2025 to compose a polyphonic ‘middle section’ for the GLORIA from Mass III, often denoted by its trope name: Missa Kyrie Deus sempiterne. This year, I’m traveling from Singapore to serve on the symposium faculty. I will be conducting Palestrina’s ‘Ave Maria’ as well as teaching plainsong to the men. A few days ago, I was asked to record rehearsal videos for this beautiful polyphonic extension. (See below.) This polyphonic composition fits ‘inside’ GLORIA III. That is, the congregation sings for the beginning and end, but the choir alone adds polyphony to the middle. The easiest way to understand how everything fits together is by examining this congregational insert. You may download the score, generously made available to the whole world—free of charge—by CORPUS CHRISTI WATERSHED:
    *  PDF Download • Gloria III ‘Middle Section’ (Kevin Allen)
    Free rehearsal videos for each individual voice await you at #24366. Related News • My colleague, Jeff Ostrowski, composed an organ accompaniment for this same GLORIA a few months ago. Obviously, the organist should drop out when the polyphony is being sung.
    —Corrinne May
    “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
    I was asked to create a booklet for my parish to use during our CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION on 22 June 2025. Would you be willing to look over the DRAFT BOOKLET (16 pages) I came up with? I tried to include a variety of hymns: some have a refrain; some are in major, others in minor; some are metered, others are plainsong; some are in Spanish, some are in Latin, but most are in English. Normally, we’d use the Brébeuf Hymnal—but we can’t risk having our congregation carry those heavy books all over the city to various churches.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Yahweh” in church songs?
    My pastor asked me to write a weekly column for our parish bulletin. The one scheduled to run on 22 June 2025 is called “Three Words in a Psalm” and speaks of translating the TETRAGRAMMATON. You can read the article at this column repository. All of them are quite brief because I was asked to keep within a certain word limit.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962
    There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop
    —Veronica Brandt
    The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum
    Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.
    —Daniel Tucker

Random Quote

“You should try to eat their food in the way they prepare it, although it may be dirty, half-cooked, and very tasteless. As to the other numerous things which may be unpleasant, they must be endured for the love of God, without saying anything or appearing to notice them.”

— Fr. Paul Le Jeune (1637)

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