A new career beckons.....professional sobber

                        Professional mourners are available from Coffinsulike.com

Apparently, there is a move to provide professional mourners at funerals, just so that it looks as if the deceased and his/her surviving family members were/are much loved folk, greatly missed by those around them.

There's nothing new in this concept. Dickens spoke of young Oliver Twist as having the right sort of sorrowful face and harrowed expression that made him a fit choice to lead the funeral cortege - a sort of professional orphan.

And, didn't the ancient Greeks have professional mourners to lead the ekphora or funeral procession? (Well, "there's posh" as they allegedly say in Wales).

An undertaker in Essex started the current trend and has found that Hull is the epicentre of demand. Hull? I ask you?

Twelve funerals have taken place in Hull, attended by these 'mourners' and you could say that it's been a tearaway success (oh, please).

So much so that it has prompted me to design a short course for those wishing to take up this profession and gain a National Vocational Qualification in Lachrymosology or, weeping if you prefer.

Here's a course outline:

Module 1 - Crying

This is a two day unit requiring delegates to undertake a series of crying modes.
These include: Gentle sniffing, heavy nose blowing, profuse tears down cheeks (known as the poke digit in eye technique), wailing, shrieking, blubbing, rolling on the ground and teeth gnashing.
Jewish delegates may opt for the garment rending session also.

Module 2 - Manifestations of grief

Half a day is dedicated to soot smearing and to rubbing ashes through hair. More advanced students (NVQ Level 1.5) may elect for the 'Iranian Massage' - that is, self flagellation with a rusty metal chain.
In the afternoon there will be sessions involving coffin clinging and banging head against any hard surface.

Module 3 - Processing and graveside routines

Special emphasis is placed on handkerchief style (wiping eyes, blowing nose and general waving around). Delegates will also get to experience the ancient 'mourner's walk', a sort of aimless ramble involving frequent falling on knees to give a solemn air of a profound sense of loss.
At the graveside there will be special 'holding back from the abyss' sessions whereby mourners appear to attempt to accompany the coffin into the grave. Earth eating is an optional extra.


There is also a module for orthodox Catholics.
It may take anything from one to two hours.

It's called, a Requiem Mass.

A funeral and a sense of joy

Today we buried the mortal remains of Anthony Wilson, known to me and to others as "Mr Wilson".

He was old school, a real Catholic one might say. A Colonel of the Church Militant.

He did not suffer fools gladly and so I am modestly pleased to say that we were friends, albeit tentative ones; we lived some 80 miles apart and, other than a few words after Mass and the annual exchange of Christmas letters, our friendship rested on our shared love of the Latin Mass and rejection of all silly liturgical abuse.

Having been nominated to serve (default really as all others were at St Catherine's Trust boot camps or on holiday somewhere), I arrived in good time to size up the layout of the church and sanctuary.

The little Church of Our Lady in Llandovery is no architectural gem but it has a great amount of charm and an air of sanctity about it. I would like very much to be a parishioner there and to lobby for a Tridentine Latin Mass every Sunday (it has no parish priest being served on a shared basis by two other parishes).

Fr Jason Jones, Extraordinary Form Coordinator for the Diocese of Menevia, was the celebrant and the Newcastle Emlyn Schola sang the hauntingly beautiful Requiem Mass.

It was suffocatingly hot and the sanctuary small and made even smaller by the mandatory altar in the middle of it.
Fortescue went out the window, practicality ruled the day and I did not make too many blunders as the server (I think).

Fr Jones gave quite one of the most charitable and kind sermons I have ever heard and he set the scene for those unfamiliar with the EF Mass. No communion unless you were a Catholic and in a state of grace, and reception kneeling, if possible and on the tongue.

Except that, he didn't use those clumsy words, he was light of tongue and as likely to cause offence as a butterfly sunning itself on a warm Welsh country wall.

And, afterwards, we drove to the country graveyard where Mr Wilson was to be buried. I drove in my car through the sleepy town of Llandovery still in my cassock and cotta.
Anyone looking into the car might have thought that this was some new form of personalised greeting show; not so much a gorillagram as a servergram! Maybe they thought I would burst into someone's front room and let rip with the Missa de Angelis Credo.

I think that anyone over the age of 60 must feel a few twinges when standing at the mouth of a yawning grave. I certainly did today.
I kept thinking, in a few years time, or sooner,  that could be me being lowered into the depths.

And then, the graveside blessing and prayers and a sudden sense that I had witnessed something natural and beautiful; the end of an earthly life and, Deo volente, the beginning of an everlasting one.

One that was going to be beyond comparison with this life on earth - all is well, God is here; the Father receives his prodigal son, home for good.

We sang Salve Regina lustily (is there any other way?) and blessed the coffin and grave with holy water.

And then, and then........we adjourned to the pub (The Goose and Cuckoo) to do justice to Mr Wilson in a manner that he would have approved of (as would Chesterton and Belloc and, of course, Giraldus Cambrensis).

There is nothing like a funeral on a blistering hot day to work up a thirst and I wasted no time in downing a pint or two of.......Diet Coke (I was driving you see).

Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace Amen

L. Anthony Wilson, Meteorologist died 13th July 2012

A little night music....

Requiem....beautiful, atmospheric......and for those in Purgatory

Would you leave your heart in San Francisco?

I was rather fascinated by the fact that Otto von Habsburg, last heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire ( who was laid to rest today, Saturday July 16th following a Requiem Mass at St Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna) has had his body interred in the crypt of the Cathedral while his heart is to be buried in a Benedictine Monastery in Hungary.

This seems to me to be quite a good arrangement. Not the interring bit, I mean the heart being removed and deposited in some desirable place.

I know that, not 5 miles from where I live, there is a ruined chapel with a stone sarcophagus that is home to the pickled hearts of I don't know how many Crusader knights whose bodies were buried in a foreign field but who obviously had a desire to have part of themselves reunited with the homeland by being interred on familiar ground.

Would you want your heart interred
at Brains? (ahem)

Where, I wondered, would I like my heart to be buried (you see I am (at heart) a romantic and not a curmudgeon). I immediately discounted Brains Brewery in Cardiff, home to the ambrosial Rev James Bitter. This would be too secular for my tastes and, anyway, the planning authorities might have a word or two to say at the prospect of a main street in Cardiff being excavated to house my heart.

"You can't put that hear there boyo" the planning officer would say (Welshmen never actually use the word 'boyo' but, apparently it annoys the hell out of Lord Kinnock so I take great joy in using it at every opportunity.
"It's against Section 4 sub section 18 of the Highways and Byways Act - where it states: "Hearts are not for the burying of on any main street in England or Wales due to possible incidences of a) future subsidence or,  b) dangers to public health".

I really would like my heart to be deposited in a holy place but I am also drawn to places that have a good memory for me, sites of special affection....mmmm......the cafe in Surbiton where I proposed to my wife?.....not a good idea ("Hearts are orff the menu today dear).

Along the banks of the River Thames...yes, that is an attractive proposition for me; I have spent many happy years fishing, swimming and boating on the Thames but it seems a bit occultish to go around burying hearts willy nilly.

I need, perhaps to look a little further afield and it really is a must to find somewhere sacred.

Got it! It has to be Lourdes. Not on the domain, of course and not in the town centre but, maybe on the banks of the Gave, a few hundred yards upstream from the shrine or, maybe, on one of the high slopes that look down on the town and the Basilica. I always feel a sense of coming home when I arrive in Lourdes, it would be good to feel that my heart is where my home is (?)

Where would you like your heart to be buried?

The Mass - unchanged throughout the centuries!

"When the priest sayeth his Mass at the altar, commonly there is an image before him, and commonly it is a crucifix, stone or wood or protrayed.

For every Mass is a special remembrance of Christ's passion, and therefore he hath before him a crucifix to enable him to have the more fresh remembrance, as he ought to, of Christ's Passion.
Before this image the priest says his Mass, and makes the highest prayers the holy Church can devise for the salvation of the quick and the dead.
He holds up his hands, he bows, or else he kneels down, and all the worship he can do, he does.

Moreover, he offers up the highest sacrifice and the best offering that anyone can devise, that is Christ, God's Son of Heaven, under the form of bread and wine.
All this worship does the priest at Mass before the image".

From "Dives and Pauper" printed by Wynken de Worde 1496

Please pray for the soul of Henry Thompson whose Requiem Mass will be held today at St Paul's Church, Haywards Heath

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death nor crying nor sorrow for the former things are passed away

A LITTLE SOUL MUSIC......

.....just because it's Friday

Where there's a will there's a good Catholic burial

Not precisely a popular topic but, this winter has seen off several friends and acquaintances and has highlighted a vital fact for Catholics with a traditional mindset.
That is, unless you wish to receive an OF Requiem Mass and a cremation afterwards, you should stipulate exactly what your liturgical wishes are in your will.

Now, before I am jumped on from a great height by lovers of the OF Mass, let me state at once that the choice of Mass - for one's last Mass on earth, should be a matter of your choice and yours alone.
The reason for expressing this concern is that, good and faithful traditional Catholics have died and, for reasons of expediency or mistaken understanding, been subject to modern Requiem Masses and a cremation. Fine if you want that but most trads do not.

Left in the hands of relatives or the local priest the arrangements soon become fashioned in a style that would not meet with the approval of the deceased.
My good friend who died last year (a traditionalist all of his life) received a modern Mass complete with Methodist hymns (as the priest said: 'His wife is Methodist and it will make her feel at ease") and all topped off with beret wearing flag bearers from the British Legion - strictly against Canon Law.

So, a good starting point is to be made while you are still living. What will happen if you suffer a stroke and sink into unconsciousness? Other than medical procedures the answer is, probably nothing. Most people shy away from Extreme Unction/Sacrament of the Sick, Last Rites, even good Catholics get a fit of the shivers at the thought of receiving this sacrament. Crazy. If its left to a non Catholic relative then you can forget the whole issue; it won't happen.
Ergo, make sure it is in your will and that those closest to you realise that the first thing to do (even if you drop down dead) is to call the priest and ask him to administer the sacrament (some priests appear reluctant to do this - but not the orthodox ones).
After that you specify that you require a full ocean going, fur lined, gold plated Extraordinary Form Requiem Mass - get a sung one if there is a choir available, after all, you will only do this once!
And please leave instructions that you do not wish for any eulogies, no embarrassing stories about things that you did when you were 12 years old and definitely no crappy bits of verse written by a maiden aunt when overcome by grief and cooking sherry. Make sure the priest knows that you want an orthodox sermon on the four last things; at least that might benefit someone in the congregation.
You may like to consider a piece of plainchant or a good hymn for the Communion period and, maybe, a breezy latin hymn for after Mass but the rest takes care of itself.

Now, my preference is for a coffin and six feet of earth over it. It's the expensive option, of course, but my preferred option.

Gulp! I don't want to plan too much in advance!

My children also prefer it because it gives them a physical point over which they may grieve, initially. And a chance to show their affection, occasionally afterwards, by leaving the odd bunch of flowers when in the area. It is also (though not exclusively) the more Catholic option as it leaves the body intact - no destruction of God's work other than Nature's).
So you may like to consider arranging a plot while you are living (to make it easier for them, one thing less to consider).
Am I being morbid? I hope not. My soul is going to need every bit of assistance available so I am not going to leave it to chance. I might end up getting "Shine, Jesus, Shine" as an entrance hymn...now that would be morbid!