Of Funerals and Perfection and Falling Short

Peter O'Toole in an interview told a story about having, in his roistering days, sent a jacket to the dry cleaners that had been through rather a lot, too much for tweed.

It was came back with a note pinned to it, "It distresses us to return work that is not perfect."

He tells the story as an apology for a movie, or a role, or something of which he is not particularly proud.

Now let me say, first off, I am too lazy to claim that I always strive for perfection, it would be hypocritical to do so.

But at things that really, truly matter, I do my best.

Not perfection, but MY best. (The biography of St Francis that I'm reading has interesting things to say on the "medieval" striving for spiritual perfection.... really? such efforts are medieval? but I digress...)
So I do my best.

But I understand that "everyone has his reasons."

And that everyone has different priorities, so opinions may vary as to what "really, truly matters."
But I cannot but gnash my teeth when I am doing my level best to... well, do my level best.
And someone who doesn't know, or doesn't care tries to prevent it.
Sometimes, truly infuriatingly, it is someone whose business it isn't even.

I don't expect HN, or SMM or even JT to agree with me. I don't expect the first two to be as well informed in matters specific to my area as I have worked hard to become. (I don't expect the first-named to even care to become informed, but that's another story.)
But they certainly all have a greater right than the average PIP to express their views, and have me at least give them a hearing (and of course, the last named, more than that, he has a right to expect compliance. And oddly, of the three, it is of course the one with not only the least knowledge but the least authority who most expects the world to ask "how high?" when the order to "Jump!" is issued. But again, long digression, NOT what this is about.)

Yesterday we had a funeral so tiny that pall-bearers needed to be hired.

One of the funeral choir's number buttonholed me waving her copy of the In paradisum, and asked, not trying to hide the disgust she always displays in reference to this recessional, "do we HAAAAAFTA sing this? the funreal's so small they'll be outside before we get to the song!", meaning the hymn which I always program for immediately after as a concession to those who resisted my minimal moves toward orthopraxis.
I explained for the umpteenth time, that the In paradisum, (almost invariably in English, I hasten to assure you, in respect for the liturgical sensibilities of my pastor,) is an actual prescribed part of the ritual, unlike the hymns which are merely tacked on.

"Yeah? Then why don't the other priests do it?"
And what could I answer?
That I can't say, but that perhaps at other parishes they are either unaware of or unconcerned with what the liturgical books actually ask for?

One of our priests, for instance, regularly preaches at funerals that funeral vestments "used to be black" but since Vatican II, white is "what's called for." How could I tell him no, purple actually, and then black, and then white in some places but only as an indult.

And if he doesn't know what the actual rite calls for, what chance is there of the PIPs, or the PILs knowing?
Funeral liturgical praxis is generally woeful in the Church in this country, and it is understandable that it should be, (for more reasons than inaccuracies often spread by those given charge of it.)

A family in mourning, or even shock are in no condition to receive catechesis on the right conduct of the liturgy, the importance of ars celebrandi, (at least not directly.)

They are in need of catechesis on so much more immediate concerns (the actual teachings of Holy Mother Church, for instance, on worthy reception of the Body and Precious Blood of Christ, the good death, the necessity of prayer for the dead, purgatory, atonement...)

And the charge to be "pastoral" is often carried out badly. Some think an equivalent is "being nice by giving people whatever they ask for."

They don't realize that rite ritual has a catechetical power all its own, that solemnity can inform, that obedience can teach.

And funerals become the "gateway" do-it-yourself liturgy, and the infection spreads.
Infinitesimally small concessions often turn out to be virulent.
From using "other suitable hymns" we get to ignorance of the very existence of propers, then to other unsuitable songs," then to the anything-goes Mass.

During the Mass why shouldn't we have Over the Rainbow?
Tura-lur-lura?
A toast with the beer he loved?
Her favorite poems read?
A 20 minute "roast" of the deceased and all his family friends and their humorous foibles?
An opening greeting, welcoming "this party, this send-off" delivered by the cheery bereaved?

Yes.
No joke.
ALL of these.
Nothing made-up, or second-hand.
It is not necessary to exaggerate to make this point.

1st Communion and Confirmations are not far behind in their wanton hi-jacking and privatizing of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, but frankly, if the Liturgy is to be "fixed," if the world is to be saved, I'm not sure it won't have to start with the Mass of Christian Burial.