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Thursday 2 October 2014

My Funeral

A road trip to a canonization memorial, too many miles of fretting on the way thither, and being disappointed on the way hither.

I know for a bald, flat  and unnuanced fact, from actual, sober, undemented conversations with the deceased, that prayer for rather than prayers to would have been appreciated.

Do modern Catholics think purgatory and limbo were similarly held notions? quaint but undogmatic, outmoded opinions of the long gone?
Pre- (horrors!) Vatican Two?
1. Yoo-hoo, yoo-hoo, yeah, you, I'm calling you,
When you're planning my funeral rites,
Don't assume I'm in heaven - I'll need your prayers for sure.
    REFRAIN: I'm beggin', preach about the Four Last Things,
    And please don't croon that "Eagle's Wings", 
    I'll need your prayers when I am gone,
    And frankly, I just cannot bear that song.
2. The number of syllables changes every verse,
And the pick-ups fill cantors with dread.
Sing this at my obsequies, and I'll haunt you when I'm dead.
      REFRAIN ...
3. Just to make certain, I'm leaving this command -
For my fun'ral, the propers will do.
No soupy songs, that just don't quite scan, paraphrases that don't even rhyme.
      REFRAIN...

2 comments:

Mr. C said...

Verse two is hilarious!
You, my lady, are a cad.
But the song is spot on.

Anonymous said...

A "cad"?

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)