Michael Kelly
There’s a terribly jarring advertisement on the radio at the moment. The trite catchphrase goes something like “this is us…staying at home…keeping away from one another…this is us”. It’s undoubtedly well-meaning and designed to affirm people in their persistence in observing pandemic-related restrictions. But, there is something desperately sad in it because this is actually not us – it is not who we are, it is what we have had to endure in a bid to thwart this deadly pestilence. It is what has been forced upon us by circumstance and regulation.
Burying
Nowhere is this more acutely felt than when it comes to burying our dead, and nowhere else is there more piercing need for a rethink from policy-makers on the handful of people permitted at funerals. Families who are burying loved ones are being denied even the consolation of their spouse at their side during a funeral due to the rigid restriction on mourners.
As Catholics, we believe in a profound unity between the living and the dead. We also believe that this life matters and the human relationships we form on earth matter since our faith is both a call to live in this world as well as to look forward to the world that is to come.
Reminds
It is captured beautifully in the funeral rite when the priest reminds mourners: “My brothers and sisters, we believe that all the ties of friendship and affection which knit us as one throughout our lives do not unravel with death”.
In the profound experience of death, family matters, the human relationships we form that sustain us throughout our earthly pilgrimage matter and – crucially – marriage matters. In fact, Catholics believe that the moral and sacramental significance of the two-in-one-flesh bodily unity is foundational to the marital form of love. Yet, if it breaches the limit two people who share the same bed are not allowed to sit beside one another in an enormous church at a time of tremendous grief.
Love
The desire to love and be loved is the deepest need of our being. We long to be known, accepted, and cherished by another. Of course, only God can give us the unconditional love and acceptance that we desire. Yet, he has created marriage to mirror this supreme love on earth.
This has profound implications for how we understand the relationship between a married couple both theologically and practically. It goes against everything we believe about marriage as Catholics to treat a couple as two distinct units, particularly at a time when they need the love and affection they share more than most to help them navigate grief and loss.
There is also the fact that even for a moderately-sized family, a limit of ten people means that some of the children of other close relatives of the person who has died may be asked to stay at home.
Cruel
This is cruel at a time when people need kindness and support. It is a cruelty that is compounded if one leaves the funeral and goes to the supermarket across the road and sees – perhaps – hundreds of people doing their grocery shopping under one roof. Or, what of what the Government has decided to call ‘elite’ sports where 30 players from 30 different homes are kicking a football around a pitch for 70 minutes while families are told they must limit attendance at funerals to ten?
Mental health
There has been much talk in recent days about the damaging effects on mental health of the pandemic restrictions. When the pandemic subsides – as subside it undoubtedly will – people will remember the cruelty of not being at funerals more than missing the county championship. There does need to be limits, of course, but a limit of 10 takes no account of the size of Irish families or of the importance of obsequies in our tradition.
There should be flexibility here and so long as physical distancing can be observed, more close family members ought to be allowed to attend a funeral. With indications that this current lockdown will go on for months, kindness and compassion needs to win out over rigid legalism.