Cathal Barry
A shift in practice seems to be occurring across the country, reports Cathal Barry
Removals have been an integral part of the grieving process for bereaved Irish families down the years.
However, it appears than an increasing number of families are opting to shun the practice, preferring instead for their deceased loved ones to be brought to the church on the morning of the funeral Mass.
Research carried out by the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin has found that 62% of families in the diocese choose to have their loved one’s remains received at the church just prior to the funeral, in most cases having come directly from the family home.
The practice varies from parish to parish, according to the research. While some overwhelmingly favoured the reception of remains to take place the morning of the funeral, others still seemed to prefer a removal to the church the previous evening. It’s not an exact science, but the majority (62%) was found to favour the former.
Julie Kavanagh, a member of Kildare and Leighlin’s liturgical commission, explained one reason families were deciding against having a removal to the church the evening before the funeral was that some people aren’t familiar with the church and may feel uncomfortable leaving their loved one there overnight.
Physical space
“There are a lot of different reasons why people might go directly to the church on the morning of the funeral and it may well just suit some families,” the pastoral resource person told The Irish Catholic.
“Certainly there is a sense that if families aren’t used to being in that physical space it might be harder for them to leave their loved one there overnight,” she said.
“If you are coming to a parish church week in week out it’s a very familiar space to you but if it isn’t a familiar space you might feel a little bit uneasy leaving your loved one there.
“If you talk to families and they understand that [the deceased person] has one final night in the house of God, where they were welcomed as a child of God, then that is different… it’s how you discuss it with people,” she reasoned.
Noting that there were a number of “implications” as a result of such a shift in practise, Ms Kavanagh said there were both “losses and gains” for people.
She pointed out that it “lessens the opportunity for the community to offer their support”.
“The night before the funeral, after the reception of remains, there is that time of lingering and offering condolences and there is that natural space there for people.
“People are very often working during the day and this is an opportunity for them to connect with the family and offer their support,” Ms Kavanagh said.
Another benefit of the removal the evening before the funeral is it offers families the opportunity to hit the “pause button” on the grieving process.
“One of the things about going directly to the church on the morning of a funeral is that things happen very quickly. One moment you are bringing your loved one to the church and the next minute you are standing up and bringing them to the grave.
“The reception of remains the night before gives families a chance to slow things down a little bit and helps in the stages of the grieving process and allows them to do it in incremented gentle steps,” she said.
Acknowledging too that “there seems to be a slight move back to the wake in the home as opposed to the funeral home and then with the increase in reception of remains directly to the church on the morning of a funeral”, Ms Kavanagh recognised there was a “greater opportunity for prayer in the home” as well as “a greater need to provide prayer in the home”.
To that end, the diocese is distributing a number of specially produced prayer cards to parishes this week to assist families in facilitating prayer.
“There is a need for prayer in the home and there is a need to resource people in order to lead that prayer, but also for families themselves in their own quiet moments of prayer to have something in their hands, a family prayer card they can dip in and out of in a quiet moment individually or among themselves,” she said.
Change
Another diocese which has experienced some degree of change with regard to funeral practise is Meath.
Navan curate Fr Robert McCabe explained that while the evening removal remains the norm in his own parish, “in some places we would have the reception of remains immediately before Mass”.
Coining the phrase “the removal of the removal”, Fr McCabe acknowledged that over the past 10 years, particularly along the east of the Meath diocese in areas closer to Dublin, there has been an increase in families opting to have their loved one’s remains received on the morning of their funeral.
Noting that he personally found the removal to be “a valuable time” for families to gather in the church, Fr McCabe said he would “encourage” families to see it as such.
“I would be trying to encourage people to see them as two valuable times of prayer, the removal to the church and the following day coming back with the parish community before the altar, with somebody we have carried to the altar the night before.
“Sometimes when the removal happens in the morning, people keep vigil for the whole night, then they go to the church, then they go to the cemetery and then they go on for a cup of tea and refreshments.
“That’s a lot in one day,” he said, noting that it is helpful “if people can pace themselves”.
“Sometimes it makes people very tired and even more emotional in the church on the day of the funeral, whereas if they have taken the few steps of breaking up the wake, the removal and the funeral Mass there is a more paced progress,” he reasoned.
Fr McCabe also noted that he felt it was a “powerful” and “lovely” statement for a family to leave their loved one before the altar for the night.
“We are leaving them in God’s house. We are leaving them in God’s care for the night,” he said, adding that “bringing the body to the church the night before and going home to an empty house is a valuable stage” in the grieving process that required catechesis on the part of the priest.
“The lack of a removal,” according to Fr McCabe, “might impact even more so on the mourners and friends of the family who would like a choice of being able to go to either the removal or the funeral Mass and who are working and can’t attend.”
Support
“Some people who are retired have all the time to go to removals and funerals and be of great support to people, but sometimes people just can’t attend due to work commitments,” he said.
The practice of removals has never been commonplace in the Derry diocese, according Fr Brendan Collins.
The Long Tower curate explained that when a death occurs in the diocese, the remains are typically brought to the family home and would usually stay there for two nights before being brought to the church on the morning of the funeral.
“We still have the wake in the house. That has always been the tradition here and it is still quite common.
“It would be uncommon if somebody was in a funeral home in the North of Ireland really,” Fr Collins said, unless circumstances dictated otherwise of course.
Noting “people who grieve with the body in the house were better equipped for dealing with the death”, Fr Collins said he thought a wake the night before the funeral was “a good idea” that “becomes a natural process for grieving”.
“It’s people popping in to pay their respects that can give a family a lot of comfort. The houses are very accessible and people feel very free. At no other time would you ever just walk into somebody house like that, but people do just walk in and become part of the house. It’s a real community thing. The local community just comes together to show support towards the family in some sort of way,” he said.
Connection
Fr Collins also noted that a wake in the family home rather than a removal offers people “who don’t have the connection to the church” an opportunity to “come to the house to be with the family to offer sympathy and support and comfort”, adding that he would be reluctant to change such a tradition.
“If we lose what we have here and we create something a little bit more clinical I think we will lose that freedom, which is part of the grieving process.
“When a shock death occurs, some people go into autopilot because they have a wake to organise. The community comes together, it becomes about the community helping each other, and surely that is what church should be about,” he said.
Fr Charlie Kiely, Cork and Ross’s Director of Pastoral Development, said that while removals were by and large still the norm in the diocese, he said noticed an uptake in families choosing to “wake the dead in their homes”.
“The change that we have noticed in recent years is that people are waking their loved ones at home, especially in rural areas.
“I would say people have better homes now that they perhaps previously had, they have become a bit wealthier and they have more than the basics now,” he said, adding that people want to be “surrounded by family” and that a funeral home can be a “cold” place.
Noting that removals are “still the norm” in Cork and Ross, Fr Kiely pointed out that removals were only introduced in Ireland in 1896, when the then bishops took action to curb the “disrespectful carry on” that was occurring in homes at the wake prior to the funeral the following morning.
“The removal is still the norm,” he said, noting that “a few but not many” opt to bring their loved ones to the church on the morning of the funeral.
Tuam’s Diocesan Secretary, Fr Fintan Monahan, acknowledged that while removals were still the option of choice for the majority of families in the west of Ireland, “the practise of going straight to the church the morning of the funeral Mass is increasing”.
“Both exist at the moment. It’s not so much that the Church is pushing it but people are more and more taking the option of staying in the home and going straight to the church on the morning of the funeral”.
“Quite a number still go to the funeral home traditionally and come to the church the night before. I would say that is still very much the majority but certainly the practise of going straight to the church the morning of the funeral Mass is increasing,” he said.
Noting that people in rural Ireland tend to “uphold the traditional practice”, Fr Monaghan said “the wake in the house always has been a big thing”.
“I suppose people like the intimacy of that and like the sense of having the remains there as long as they possibly can before departing,” he said.
Like Fr Monahan, Mrs Kavanagh also pointed out that the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin was not trying to dictate to families on how they should approach the grieving process, rather attempting to be particularly respectful in attempting to accompany families through their grief, in “exploring the opportunities and possibilities with them without saying this is the way to go”.
Whatever about tradition, it seems personal preference is swiftly becoming the primary factor in the decision making process with regard to deceased family members. Times are changing.