Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Length of Funerals
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by SvitlanaV2: There are not particularly religious people today who demand that their funeral be a totally joyful occasion, full of bright clothes, lively music and jokes. Their friends and relatives try to honour their wishes. ...
Thank you Svetlana for that. I've encountered this too, several times, and the way you've expressed it has crystallised for me why I don't think it works and why it's always left me uneasy.
Broadly, without a lively hope in the Resurrection, a funeral is not a joyful occasion. Trying to persuade one another it is because the deceased has left the message that he or she doesn't want us to be miserable, is not only a lie. It's also telling us what someone else thinks we should feel, and not allowing us to feel what we actually do feel.
Even at a Christian funeral of someone who has achieved a fulness of years and has possibly borne sickness and pain, we're still sad that they've gone. We'd rather have them here, full of life and vigour.
-------------------- Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
I've spent the best part of 2 days with an old friend helping her with planning her father's funeral.
She's one of four: all broadly unchurched, although the friend did sing in a church choir up to the age of 14 or so.
Anyway - spent time going through service (as per CofE website planner, etc) - all this with the agreement of the clergyman taking the service because friend, widow and other close relatives all 300 miles away from where service will be. Got it all sorted when BANG: friend's youngest brother comes up with "We thought it would be nice if Phoebe and Hector recited some poems they've written during the service". Left it to friend to point out that since Phoebe and Hector are 5 and 3 years old reading aloud in a strange building to 200+ people may not be within their grasp.
Where do people get these weird ideas from?
-------------------- Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Comes as no surprise, if I may say so, that the kids are called something like Phoebe and Hector.
-------------------- My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
The main thing at a funeral is to have a good cry.
-------------------- 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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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
It is right it should be so; Man was made for joy and woe; And when this we rightly know, Thro' the world we safely go.
(Blake)
The Christian faith is indeed in escatological hope, but Christ only gets to the Resurrection through the cross and passion.
Likewise, we can only know the greatness of Christian hope and joy if we have known desolation first.
-------------------- 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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Barnabas Aus
Shipmate
# 15869
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Posted
Attended the Requiem Mass for a local dignitary on Saturday. After the opening hymn, the priest gave the greeting, which was then followed by three eulogies and a PowerPoint presentation, before the liturgy proper finally got underway about 30 minutes later. Total service length about 1 hour 55 minutes. A couple of the elderly notables present seemed to find this a severe strain on bladder capacity.
Posts: 375 | From: Hunter Valley NSW | Registered: Sep 2010
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Just back from the funeral of one of my aged aunts.
First off was service in church - with tribute delivered by my cousin.
Hymns: Calon Lān, Jerusalem the Golden, The Lord my pasture shall prepare
Service: the Church in Wales funeral, taken in English.
Then off to the crem where the remainder of the service was in Welsh.
Combined time (not including travel between two places) and hour and a half.
Wake that followed mostly taken up with discussion about the likely team for the first of the Six Nations matches.
-------------------- Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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bad man
Apprentice
# 17449
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Posted
On the subject of not getting the funeral you hoped for, I'm irresistibly reminded of Thomas Hardy's poem "The Choirmaster's Burial" or "The Tenor Man's Song", as set to music by Benjamin Britten.
Bad Man: You've quoted a whole lot more than is appropriate for reasons of copyright. I appreciate that the 4-5 line guideline would not be sufficient to make your point in this case, but fortunately you have provided a link that anyone interested can use. I have therefore deleted your quote. Thanks. John Holding - Eccles Host [ 03. March 2015, 23:59: Message edited by: John Holding ]
Posts: 49 | From: Diocese of Guildford | Registered: Nov 2012
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Barnabas Aus: Total service length about 1 hour 55 minutes. A couple of the elderly notables present seemed to find this a severe strain on bladder capacity.
Applies to those of us who are not notables, local or otherwise, as well. Even if we're just getting on a bit and not yet at the elderly stage. 75 minutes is plenty long enough for a service allowing all the time needed for everyone to take communion. No eulogy more than 5 minutes, and a grand total limit of 15.
This time last year, we went to the funeral of a man who in his life had given great service to his community and his church. 45 minutes of eulogy from a son, full of fart jokes, did his memory no good at all. A few weeks beforehand, another funeral, another man who had given great service to his and a wider community and to his church. A full requiem; even with a congregation of close on 300, most taking communion, it took 75 minutes including a couple of heartfelt eulogies from his children. Both services straight APBA
-------------------- Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by bad man: On the subject of not getting the funeral you hoped for, I'm irresistibly reminded of Thomas Hardy's poem "The Choirmaster's Burial" or "The Tenor Man's Song", as set to music by Benjamin Britten.
Great composer though Britten might be, that's a bizarrely inapposite setting for a poem about a pre-Oxford movement village musician.
This should take you to the tune of Mount Ephraim and this to the words.
-------------------- Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
This is Vital Spark and was very popular at funerals in the Hardy era. This particular recording is possibly a bit slow, particularly for modern tastes. Here it is sung in a more familiar style. It's a setting of an ode by Pope. As originally sung, it was exactly the sort of church music Oxford Movement clergy really loathed.
I've long suspected that the famous Clyde puffer was named after this hymn.
-------------------- Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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