#355 Faith and Family in the Face of Death

EXCERPT:

When my family gathered last month for my mother’s funeral, it afforded us all the opportunity to celebrate her life. But it also demonstrated how faith and family life can join people across wide gaps of belief and practice.

At this point, assembling my family means bringing together a multi-generational gathering of remarkably diverse religious affiliations. Although the funeral congregation was not large, it represented a bright rainbow of beliefs.

There were, of course, some conventional “cradle Catholics,” who have practiced their faith throughout their lives as a matter of family routine. Thus the funeral Mass, a typical simple parish rite, suited them well. The white vestments, conventional four hymns, and the congenial presider and readings by grandchildren all made the observance at once pleasant and moving.

There were also more devout folks, or those personally invested in church, who might have preferred a more personalized liturgy with a eulogy, some parts of the mass sung, and a program, but the experience was satisfactory for them as well (it helped that the grandchildren reading were women).

There were some liturgically rigorous relatives who were relieved that there was no eulogy, but lamented the chorus master’s use of electronic piano. Yet they too deemed the overall result acceptable.

There were some more evangelically-inclined members who might have found the homily a bit smarmy or wished for something more fervent or fiery, but were comfortable with it over all.

Then, especially among the younger generation, there were varying levels of church observance and practice.

Some grandchildren fall into the “conventional” category, while others constitute Christmas Catholics, and some are oriented mainly to the social justice aspects of Catholic tradition. Still others have more formally detached themselves from the Church. Among that generation’s couples, someone married in the church, some were married without clergy, and some are living together (engaged or not).

In addition to all these were the relatives from my mother’s side (the Green side) of the family. My mother was a convert to Catholicism, so her own family members brought yet more diversity. They range from mainstream Methodist to more evangelically-inclined Protestants to Unitarian-Universalists (of the agnostic variety) to others more or less unchurched.

In short, a gathering of less than 50 family members became a kind of prism for a wide spectrum of American religious life. I dare say it would be difficult to find so many religious “shades and hues” in a single family in most countries outside the United States.
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So I felt a natural curiosity about how the event (which included both the Funeral Mass and the reception in the lower church hall) would strike me.
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Following Mass we all gathered downstairs, and while the informal seating at tables tended to follow family lines, there was also good deal of mingling. Reflecting on the Mass, one cousin called it “inspiring” for its celebration of life well lived and its elements of hope. Another cousin called it “primitive” for its Eucharistic language about eating flesh and drinking blood. Why can’t Christianity, he wondered, get past that ancient (and, to him, barbaric) notion of sacrifice?

All told, I experienced a bewildering range of religiosity that nonetheless resulted in a remarkable display of common feeling of faith.
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For me, the event reflected the shifting religious landscape of American culture even as it confirmed the unchanging value of ritual in both faith and family life.