A Tale of Two ...

...funerals
One, the family asked that everything that could be done in Latin, would be.
The other, the family requested a song in the place of the psalm, as well as a deviation from the normative rite in these parts, the Missa Albenda.
Fulfilling the requests of neither of these families affected anyone so much as me, (and my choir, of course.)
But the latter was, not just allowed, but transmitted to me by the same person who denied the former with the reasoning that this is the "way we do things" here, it's "valid" and we're not going to change.
I don't contest his right, but I do question his consistency (he is such a kind person, why does "pastoral" sensitivity not extend to some people making easily filled and valid requests?,) and wonder the source of his outright hostility to a licit liturgical option (to which people have , as they say, "legitimate aspirations.")
(Though to be fair, I think the phrase "legitimate aspirations" in its first usage was being applied not to the language, per se, but to the older rite.)
Well, I did my best.
For both.
(Though it is sometimes a struggle.)