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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Funeral Flowers
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BabyWombat
Shipmate
# 18552
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Posted
A recent faux pas on my part prompts me to ask how others deal with floral tributes at a funeral.
My question stems from the following: I recently substituted for a colleague at a funeral in his church. I arrived quite early, and found the local florist unloading some ten or more floral tributes. I did as I do at my own parish: I placed the flowers about the church so they could be seen but not block the liturgy nor the congregation’s view, putting them at the base of the font, the lectern, the pulpit, etc. I encouraged the family to take as many of the flowers home with them as they wished, and they did so. (They were reserving the cremated remains for scattering at the old family farm once the weather is gentler.)
I later learned to my chagrin that I had brazenly broken my colleague’s hard and fast rule restricting flowers to two simple vases either side of the cross on the retable and one modest arrangement on the floor in front of the altar. He insists that any above that be immediately banished to the undercroft where a post-funeral reception is to occur.
My friend cites this as custom laid down by his seminary professors, under the aegis that “all are equal before God” -- and that an excess of flowers in the church visibly violates this tenet. I was trained that the flowers are expressions of sympathy and support and as such they are outward signs of concern and prayer. We set no limit on the number of mourners who may attend, and I set no limit on the number of flowers. (In my shack the flowers go to the gravesite if there is a burial, or home with the family if they wish. Any remaining are pulled out of the arrangement and used by the altar guild in vases about the church buildings.)
I’m quite certain there is no “correct” answer (or is there?). But it prompts me to ask: what do others do, or what is your practice, and why?
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Let us, with a gladsome mind…..
Posts: 102 | From: US | Registered: Feb 2016
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I don't know about funerals - I thought the wreaths were meant to go on the coffin - but vases on the altar would certainly be a no no in many places.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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BabyWombat
Shipmate
# 18552
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Posted
Mercifully we had no wreaths. There was one free standing spray which fit beautifully in front of the paschal candle, and one grouping of 6 roses (one for each child of the deceased) which I placed beside the urn (which had been veiled). The rest were arranegements in flower foam stuffed into baskets, ranging from a small one of pink posies to larger ones with varied flowers. Parish custom of a Sunday is flowers in vases either side of the cross on the retable.
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Let us, with a gladsome mind…..
Posts: 102 | From: US | Registered: Feb 2016
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Oblatus
Shipmate
# 6278
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by BabyWombat:
A recent faux pas on my part prompts me to ask how others deal with floral tributes at a funeral.
Hardly a faux pas on your part, as there clearly are different traditions on this and you could hardly have been expected to read the mind of the cleric for whom you took the funeral.
Posts: 3823 | Registered: May 2004
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Oblatus:
quote:
Originally posted by BabyWombat:
A recent faux pas on my part prompts me to ask how others deal with floral tributes at a funeral.
Hardly a faux pas on your part, as there clearly are different traditions on this and you could hardly have been expected to read the mind of the cleric for whom you took the funeral.
Particularly not as the rule is quite an idiosyncratic one. And one which should have been communicated to the family/ florist before the day (and to BabyWombat, if he was expected to enforce it).
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Siegfried
Ship's ferret
# 29
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Posted
I tremble thinking of what the regular fellow's funeral sermons must be like.
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Siegfried
Life is just a bowl of cherries!
Posts: 5592 | From: Tallahassee, FL USA | Registered: May 2001
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
I know that BabyWombat is coming from a TEC perspective, but FWIW the understanding he describes encountering—only one or two (symmetrical) arrangements, depending on the layout of the chancel/sanctuary—is in my experience the norm for American Presbyterian churches for funerals. (And for that matter, for weddings too.) Additional arrangements are placed where the family will receive visitors (home, funeral home or church parlor or fellowship hall) and may be taken to the cemetery, but are typically not placed in the sanctuary.
The Session sets the policies for such things, and so of course practice in specific congregations will vary, and regional culture and practice may come into play. But this seems to be the prevailing approach, and it's the approach typically seen as most consistent with the Directory for Worship (canon law, for us.). The reason usually given is traditional Presbyterian preference for simplicity/lack of ostentation and a desire not to detract from a focus on worship.
Also FWIW, based on what I have seen at Episcopal funerals around here, limiting flowers in the church during the funeral to one or two arrangements seems common.
[ 25. January 2017, 15:35: Message edited by: Nick Tamen ]
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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BabyWombat
Shipmate
# 18552
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Posted
My thanks to you all for your kind words and support….. and especially to Nick Tamen for providing perspective for me. My lifelong background and training has been very Anglo-Cath. The church building in my current parish was re-designed some 60 years ago to accommodate A-C liturgy, and has wide open processional spaces and side chapels, all perfect for displaying many flowers…. The colleague for whom I covered sought ordination in TEC, but did all his theological education at a Presbyterian divinity school. Our early education sitcks with us!
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Let us, with a gladsome mind…..
Posts: 102 | From: US | Registered: Feb 2016
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
If no-one told you what was "the right thing to do", it's not your fault if you apparently got things wrong.
In any case, I bet there were lots of people who loved all those flowers!
My bete-noire is flowers that are left in their cellophane wrapping to sweat - though they're less common than they used to be.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Baby Wombat, it strikes me that your friend is being dogmatic about something that is not, and should not be, the subject of dogma.
It's not a faux pas. If your friend regarded that this was so important that it was a matter of rule, then it was his job to have told you. No guilt rests on you.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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american piskie
Shipmate
# 593
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by BabyWombat:
I later learned to my chagrin that I had brazenly broken my colleague’s hard and fast rule restricting flowers to two simple vases either side of the cross on the retable and one modest arrangement on the floor in front of the altar. He insists that any above that be immediately banished to the undercroft where a post-funeral reception is to occur.
Just another bloody control freak in a cassock, I'm afraid. Whose bloody funeral is it? Whose bloody church is it?
---says he raw and fresh from a funeral, but oddly comforted by the abundance of flowers, provided in fact for an episcopal visit last weekend, although as the chief flower lady said, "the lilies didn't come out for *him*".
Have these "seminary professors" ever looked at the cards people send to express their sympathy and condolence? Have they ever wondered why people choose ones with flowers? Have they ever considered the possibility of educating their students so that they are enabled to weave these expressions of folk-religion into a thoroughly Christian funeral?
Rant over. Sorry.
Posts: 356 | From: Oxford, England, UK | Registered: Jun 2001
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
Such a good thing Baby Wombat's friend never served in some of the churches I've been priest in, where the norm is big flower arrangements spelling out 'MUM' or 'GRANDAD' in white chrysanthemums, or giant floral rabbits, fish, steam engines, or bottles of cider!
Again I remember the story told by someone at Deanery Chapter when people were relating what kind of music they allowed at funerals. 'My mother was the church cleaner. When she died, my brother and I asked the vicar if he'd say something about how much she loved the church--how she'd cleaned ever bit of the floor on her knees, out of love. He said "We don't do eulogies." Since then, I let people have what they ask for, and offer it up.' Every year I realise more deeply how right that is.
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
Posts: 7667 | From: Summerisle | Registered: May 2001
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by BabyWombat:
The colleague for whom I covered sought ordination in TEC, but did all his theological education at a Presbyterian divinity school. Our early education sitcks with us!
Ah. That could be where it came from, though I've never heard the "all equal before God" reason before. (I have heard that reason given for the value of sticking to a straight prayer book funeral.)
And I failed to say it earlier, but I agree that you certainly did not commit a faux pas by failing to observe a rule no one told you about and you had no reason to be aware of.
quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
Again I remember the story told by someone at Deanery Chapter when people were relating what kind of music they allowed at funerals. 'My mother was the church cleaner. When she died, my brother and I asked the vicar if he'd say something about how much she loved the church--how she'd cleaned ever bit of the floor on her knees, out of love. He said "We don't do eulogies."
I come from a fairly strong "we don't do eulogies" background, but I've never encountered a minister with any pastoral sensitivity who wouldn't have found a way to honor that request and simultaneously respect the church's understanding of funerals. Most often I've seen it done by working things such as that into a prayer, along the lines of "we give you thanks for the love with which she cared for this house of prayer...."
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by BabyWombat:
My friend cites this as custom laid down by his seminary professors, under the aegis that “all are equal before God” -- and that an excess of flowers in the church visibly violates this tenet.
Insensitive though this principle is in this case (my sympathies, BW) would that it was applied to church weddings.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Insensitive though this principle is in this case (my sympathies, BW) would that it was applied to church weddings.
Perhaps the colleague insists that it does. The logic would be the same. Though if he took that line with weddings, he probably wouldn't get any.
Incidentally, Nick Tamen, I'm puzzled by the idea of "we don't do eulogies". Our newer form of funeral service provides slots for separate eulogy and address. It's not always followed, but there's a lot to be said for it, particularly as it means the eulogy is given by a member of the family or a friend who actually knew the deceased, rather than expecting a clergy person to talk about peoples' memories of someone he or she possibly never met and then somehow link that to some sort of message.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Forthview
Shipmate
# 12376
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Posted
Having been involved just this week with the death and funeral of a close member of the family who had reached the age of 100,I've been thinking about the changes in funerals over the last few decades.
Eulogies are a relatively new thing here in Scotland,but are extremely common now.'Relatively new' means perhaps within the last twenty years.
At Protestant religious funerals the deceased was never even mentioned,but there were prayers for the family.
At Catholic funerals a lay person would not have come up to the sanctuary to talk about the deceased though there would be prayers for the repose of the soul.
I think that the equivalent of eulogies would have been made in a more informal context either before the funeral or after the funeral when those present would be invited to a restaurant which would 'cater respectfully' to the mourners.
Orders of service with photos of the deceased seem to be essential these days,as well as a collection for some good cause.
Flowers are much less important.In the olden days they would be put on the grave and admired (and commented upon) by those who came to view the grave. With the increasing use of crematoria what does one do with the flowers after the ceremony ?
I have to add that the funeral director at our recent funeral got things wrong with the flowers which did not arrive till after the ceremony, so we got our money back.
Posts: 3444 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2007
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american piskie
Shipmate
# 593
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Posted
This, Forthview, is as I remember it 60 years ago.
For a working-class family the flowers could be an unwelcome expense on top of everything, especially in the winter months. Even so, the neighbours, the Legion or the Lodge, the workplace, would each collect for a wreath; simple rings of greenery with a few chysanths which softened the raw bleakness of a fresh grave in a Scots burial ground in winter, when the womenfolk (in my part of Scotland custom excluded them from the funeral and burial) went later, perhaps after serving the funeral tea to the men, "to see the grave".
"Respectfully"! My children had to stop me slipping into the formula of my youth "Friends are respectfully invited to accept this, the only intimation and invitation." They said the English would not understand it was code.
Although at Church of Scotland services the deceased was not mentioned by name, surely that was the case in almost all churches? I think the references nowadays to "thy servant N" are a recent innovation. I think though, you mean more than that, and undoubtedly the C of S funeral was largely prayers for the consolation of the family, and an opening of eyes to our latter end. But even so, the 1940 Book of Common Order of the C of S, which gives a guide to the minister, has the quite explicit prayer "we thank Thee that for him all sickness and sorrow are ended, that death itself is passed, and we pray that he may enter into the rest that remaineth for Thy people."
Posts: 356 | From: Oxford, England, UK | Registered: Jun 2001
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
It's increasingly common in the UK for the wishes of the deceased, or their family, to be for no flowers (or a simple wreath), and money in lieu to be given to a favourite charity. Weddings of course are a different matter,
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Divine Praises
Apprentice
# 11955
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by BabyWombat:
The colleague for whom I covered sought ordination in TEC, but did all his theological education at a Presbyterian divinity school. Our early education sitcks with us!
Ah. That could be where it came from, though I've never heard the "all equal before God" reason before. (I have heard that reason given for the value of sticking to a straight prayer book funeral.)
And I failed to say it earlier, but I agree that you certainly did not commit a faux pas by failing to observe a rule no one told you about and you had no reason to be aware of.
quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
Again I remember the story told by someone at Deanery Chapter when people were relating what kind of music they allowed at funerals. 'My mother was the church cleaner. When she died, my brother and I asked the vicar if he'd say something about how much she loved the church--how she'd cleaned ever bit of the floor on her knees, out of love. He said "We don't do eulogies."
I come from a fairly strong "we don't do eulogies" background, but I've never encountered a minister with any pastoral sensitivity who wouldn't have found a way to honor that request and simultaneously respect the church's understanding of funerals. Most often I've seen it done by working things such as that into a prayer, along the lines of "we give you thanks for the love with which she cared for this house of prayer...."
The anecdote you quote reminds me of the conversation my brother and I had with my mother's parish priest when we were arranging her funeral.
My mother was very active in the church - going to daily Mass, cleaning the church, treasurer of the Catholic Women's League, etc, etc - but Father had only known her about ten years since he was assigned to the parish. Even though he got to know her very well, and ministered devotedly to her during her last painful illness, he asked us for some information about the time before he came to the parish.
We duly supplied the information, especially about when and why she was received into the Catholic Church. Much of this was incorporated into his homily at her funeral Mass. It was an inspiring address and in no way an eulogy. Nor was any of the service a "celebration of her life".
Instead, it was a simple, clear exposition of our faith and how we Christians live that faith and the purpose of this Requiem Mass. But that exposition was enlivened (if that's the right word) of how that faith animated my mother's life and what it meant to her.
To me, the homily (and indeed the whole funeral Mass) was a model of pastoral sensitivity. The parish priest is well known for his conservative liturgical views and there was no departure from the Church's requirements on what is to be done at funerals.
But he took the time and care to ensure that the Mass was no cold, impersonal rite but rather something which acknowledged our grief while pointing us to the glorious hope of the resurrection. Even though I wept throughout the Mass, Father's anecdote about Ma scrubbing the steps of the throne of the most high God made me smile.
Posts: 18 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2006
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
That's lovely, Divine Praises
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
quote:
Originally posted by BabyWombat:
My friend cites this as custom laid down by his seminary professors, under the aegis that “all are equal before God” -- and that an excess of flowers in the church visibly violates this tenet.
Insensitive though this principle is in this case (my sympathies, BW) would that it was applied to church weddings.
As I mentioned above, it is a very common rule for weddings in Presbyterian churches.
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Incidentally, Nick Tamen, I'm puzzled by the idea of "we don't do eulogies". Our newer form of funeral service provides slots for separate eulogy and address. It's not always followed, but there's a lot to be said for it, particularly as it means the eulogy is given by a member of the family or a friend who actually knew the deceased, rather than expecting a clergy person to talk about peoples' memories of someone he or she possibly never met and then somehow link that to some sort of message.
Sorry if I wasn't clear. When I said "I come from a fairly strong 'we don't do eulogies' background," what I meant was that when I was growing up and in young adulthood, eulogies did not form part of the funeral service, and there was a fairly strong bias against them.
That doesn't mean the funeral lacked mention of the deceased. As I noted above, remembrance of the life or character of the deceased were often worked into the prayers, or into the sermon in the manner described above by Divine Praises.
It is only in the last 10–15 that I have seen eulogies by family or friends start appearing in (American) Presbyterian funerals. What the rubrics of our funeral liturgy (the formal name is ”Service of Witness to the Resurrection") currently provide is that "expressions of gratitude to God for the life of the deceased" may follow the sermon. So even in that rubric, the long-standing concern that the service focus on God and the hope of the gospel can be seen.
I know many Presbyterians, particularly older ones, who don't really like the trend toward including them, and who have made clear in what they have told family or clergy about their preferences that they do not want any sort of eulogy at their own funeral. My parents were that way, as was my father-in-law and is my mother-in-law and I'll admit that's really my feeling, too. I know they can be done well and can be meaningful to the bereaved, and that's certainly fine. Just not what I would want for my own funeral.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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Forthview
Shipmate
# 12376
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Posted
I agree with you. Personally I wouldn't want a eulogy either, though I have to admit that they sometimes, in fact almost always tell you something interesting about the deceased.
I also don't like the term 'celebration of the life of...' although once again there is often much to give thanks for.
Posts: 3444 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2007
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
Divine Praises, that is lovely. It's exactly what I try to do in a funeral homily.
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
Posts: 7667 | From: Summerisle | Registered: May 2001
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