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The GFG Awards will be the first-ever industry awards ceremony. We have received 149 nominations for 14 categories, so it’s a very strong field. More details any time soon. First, though, our thanks to Steve Ancrum and the brilliant team at Sunset Coffins, who are donating funeral Oscars, like the one above, each of which will be presented, individually engraved with the winner’s name, on the night.

Full details of the evening plus an opportunity to buy tickets and book specially discounted accommodation here. 

Posted by Richard Rawlinson

As a blogger, I may seem as impervious to the ways of secular funerals as a civil celebrant is to the customs of Catholicism. But as a reader, I’ve mulled over ideas presented here to find they’ve struck a chord. While unprejudiced readers will already realise I value choice, whether religious or non-religious, it’s perhaps less obvious I can hold more than an ‘each to their own’ attitude, that instead of simply ‘agreeing to differ’, I sometimes ‘agree to agree’.

Poppy Mardall’s ‘Free yourself and take your time’ is a recent example of a blog that’s provided food for thought—for which I’m grateful. Discussing the service of her company, Poppy’s Funerals, she wrote that, after a simple cremation, ‘we then deliver the ashes to the family so they can hold the funeral ceremony, celebration of life or memorial with the ashes wherever, whenever and however they want’. 

As someone who reveres Church teaching, who tries (but sometimes fails) to obey the fundamentals of the faith, a funeral without the body is not something to be embraced lightly.

The Order of Christian Funerals directly links funerals to the Baptism and Confirmation journey: ‘This is the body once washed in Baptism, anointed with the oil of salvation, and fed with the Bread of Life’. It goes on to say ‘the human body is so inextricably associated with the human person that it is hard to think of a human person apart from his or her body. Thus, the Church’s reverence and care for the body grows out of a reverence and concern for the person whom the Church now commends to the care of God.’

Many here, of course, won’t give a fig about the granting of Church permission for steps taken at funerals. A non-Catholic has no need to consult an oracle which he/she doesn’t hold as a theological authority, and no doubt finds anathema such willing resignation of independence. As a Catholic though, I felt the need to check with doctrinal teaching to see if my sympathy with the option of a funeral without the body was okay or an error.

Until just 50 years ago, the Church forbad cremation due to the belief in the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit. In 1963, she waived this law, an example of how rituals of the Church adapt to the cultural needs of members as long as this doesn’t sacrifice basic beliefs. The Church continues to prefer and encourage the faithful to bury the dead, but supports the faithful in honouring the life of the departed in this different way. She accepts ‘one hat doesn’t necessarily fit all’, and this alternative isn’t a rejection of core values.

When the Church accepted cremations, she initially still required they be carried out only after the actual body was present at the funeral Mass. Ashes were not allowed in church as substitute for the body due to reverence for the body which carried the oils from Baptism and Confirmation.

However, in 1997, the Church recognised the need of relatives of those who had chosen cremation to have a tangible presence of the deceased during a post-cremation funeral Mass. She lifted the ban on having ashes present during the service.

This lenience was triggered by cases such as a person who dies suddenly a long way from home, and the family can’t afford to repatriate the body. The body is then cremated near the location of death, and the urn of ashes transported home more affordably. It then seemed insensitive to refuse those mourners a funeral mass with the ashes present. A memorial mass may be a comfort but some feel there’s something missing at the funeral mass without the presence of deceased in at least some form.

Despite condoning cremations and funeral masses with ashes—although still preferring burial of the body—the Church continues to forbid the faithful from scattering cremains or displaying them at home, insisting they be buried within an urn in a cemetery.

Footnote: Rome had to make minor revisions to liturgy to accommodate the new choices. The Order of Christian Funerals prescribes three separate rites to celebrate the journey from this life to the next, and to help mourners through this period of separation and letting go. The ideal sequence of this trio of rites is vigil (short prayer service at the bedside or funeral home), funeral mass (full mass in church), committal (short prayer service at the graveside or crematorium). Cremation before the funeral requires the vigil, committal (of sorts), funeral mass with urn of cremains present instead of body in coffin, committal proper (in cemetery). Prayers, therefore, no longer make specific reference to the body that was washed in Baptism, but to ‘earthly remains’. 

From the Carlisle News and Star:

A tea dance at The Shepherds Inn, in Montgomery Way, Carlisle, will replace the traditional wake, after the 83-year-old’s funeral at Carlisle Crematorium.

Elizabeth Ellen Brown, known as Betty to her many friends, colleagues and family members, had planned her funeral a week before she died.

Her death at Eden Valley Hospice on Friday came as a shock to those who knew her though, as even in her 80s she had been full of life. Betty had been diagnosed with cancer less than three weeks earlier.

Her daughter Christine Kania said: “My mum chose everything; when she went into the hospice she said ‘we need to talk about my funeral’.

“It’s the most difficult conversation I’ve ever had, but she decided where she wanted it, who she wanted and said she wanted a tea dance and no black clothes. She’s also given me all the music she wants played. My mum definitely knew her own mind.”

Full story here. 

Funeralworld tends to be a very quiet, even dull, place — well, in Britain it is. And perhaps we should be grateful for that. If we glance over at our friends in the US we find much more goes on. In the last few days…

A hearse driver died while taking a body to a funeral 

A woman at a funeral home where she was receiving friends after the death of her mother on Monday collapsed and died

A Grand Rapids family is getting an $80,000 settlement payout from a funeral home whose staff they say dropped their mother’s coffin, causing her body to fall onto the ground outside the church where her funeral was about to take place.

In Kentucky, a man has been arrested for stealing a tractor from a funeral home. A tractor?? 

In Florida, a funeral director’s dog died. “He lined up an Episcopal priest and a Baptist minister and former Pasco County Sheriff Bob White to speak. He placed Lucy in a Grecian solid bronze casket. He printed memorial cards with a picture of Lucy and a prayer for animals. He shopped for flowers.”

In Florida, officers are searching for 54-year-old Phillip Steve Stavrakis who shot his brother the day after their mum’s funeral.

22 per cent of all health spending goes to people in their last year of life.

Posted by Belinda Forbes, celebrant.

For some of the participants, when an event as life-changing as the Olympics finishes, it is like a bereavement. So it was appropriate that at the Closing Ceremony on Sunday evening Eric Idle performed Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life. This is a song which I have been asked to play on several occasions – usually at the end of a funeral ceremony.

Amongst the skating nuns, the Indian dance troupe, the Welsh women in traditional costume, the Morris Dancers and the angels, my eyes were drawn to the Scottish pipers. This was the Reading Scottish Pipe Band led by Pipe Major Ron Paterson. I have had the privilege to work with Ron and we have done several funerals together. At a funeral in April of a fellow piper, Ron played with pipers from the Reading Pipe Band and the Pride of Murray Pipe Band – seeing them lead the hearse through the crematorium gates was an incredibly moving sight.

Last night he was interviewed on our local BBC new programme South Today about his experiences at the Closing Ceremony. He and the other band members had thoroughly enjoyed mixing with the celebrities. One of the Spice Girls made Ron’s day when she told him that she loved his uniform. However, the best moment for him was the noise made by the audience as the band entered the stadium.

You deserve it Ron!

Today’s theme is ashes, by the way.

In her brilliant book Making an Exit, which not nearly enough of you have read, the author, Sarah Murray, plans her own dispersal. First, she wants to be resomated and reduced to the pure white ‘ash’ characteristic of the process. What next? Scattering, of course, for cremation is, and here she quotes from Robert Hertz’s Death and the Right Hand, “usually neither a final act, nor sufficient in itself; it calls for a later and complementary rite.”

Her plan depends on the three great attributes of cremains: they are portable, durable and divisible. Her plan also takes into account her love of travel.

She’s chosen six destinations, and she’s going to set aside funds for travel grants for which interested people may compete. While doing their thing in each of the seven destinations, they will scatter a portion of her ash.

The following is abridged:

Number one: the Empire State Building … The wire mesh fence on the Observation Deck is not too densely woven, so it should be easy enough to reach through and scatter a few grains of ashes.

Number two: Vishwanath Gali, Varanasi, India. The place I really want to be is behind the waterfront, where a labyrinth of tiny lanes is stuffed with even tinier shops, cafes, temples. This is Vishwanath Gali, an ancient bazaar … Being in the midst of all these goodies – as well as crowds of women in saris, the occasional cow and barefoot sadhus in flamboyant robes of orange, gold and silver — is my idea of heaven, so please leave a portion of me here.

Number three: Echo Valley, Sagada, Philippines. Whoever’s drawn to natural beauty, tranquillity, fresh mountain air and the scent of pines should be the one to take a portion of my ashes up here. I’d like them thrown across Echo Valley to join the Igorot ancestors in their craggy limestone resting places. 

Number four: Mercado Abastos [a busy market], Oaxaca, Mexico. Look out for the sections for shoes, flowers, woven baskets and crazy miniature items … I’d like part of me left amid the throb and rhythm of the market, in with the mango skins, bits of string and cigarette butts.

Number five: Karimabad, Hunza Valley, northern Pakistan — a valley where the great ranges of the Karakoram, Pamir, Hindu Kush and Himaayas fight it out in a grand confusion of jagged peaks and gaping ravines … I hope to get back there someday while I’m still living, but I’d also like a tiny piece of me left there after I’m dead. 

Number six: Fa’s Hill [a family name, after Sarah’s father], North Poorton, West Dorset. Highlights include the spectacular coastline and pebble beaches [and] the magnificent Iron Age hill fort at Eggardon.

Sarah concludes:

In this, I join the ranks of philanthropists, medical researchers, teachers, sports coaches, parents and others who hope that they can provide a springboard for the creativity and productivity of those following them. It’s the idea that, even though the power supply has been switched off, we may still be able to generate a few sparks of electricity. That’s what I call living on. 

You can buy a copy of Sarah’s book here. Highly recommended.

From the Daily Mail:

Chris Mears had a five per cent chance. Of living, that is. Nothing to do with diving. A five per cent chance of surviving an emergency operation on a ruptured spleen in a training hospital in Sydney.

Impressive then that on Tuesday night, three years on, the 19-year-old was competing in an Olympic final. Especially as he wasn’t supposed to get past the preliminary stage anyway.

He finished a respectable 9th in the 3m springboard, some way off Russian winner Ilya Zakharov, but 9th in the world isn’t too bad when you’ve been through what he’s been through.

Chris Mears had a five per cent chance. Of living, that is. Nothing  to do with diving. A five per cent chance of surviving an emergency operation on a ruptured spleen in a training hospital in Sydney.

Impressive then that on Tuesday night, three years on, the 19-year-old was competing in an Olympic final. Especially as he wasn’t supposed to get past the preliminary stage anyway.

He finished a respectable 9th in the 3m springboard, some way off Russian winner Ilya Zakharov, but 9th in the world isn’t too bad when you’ve been through what he’s been through.

Chris was sponsored by Reading funeral director AB Walker. Read all about it here.

Hat-tip to Tony Piper. 

Lord Peter Ralfe Harrington Evans-Freke, 11th Baron of Carbery,  was laid to rest yesterday in the family mausoleum in the chapel of Castlefreke beside his wife, Lady Joyzelle Carbery. There was a full Tridentine sung Latin mass at Rathbarry Church. Monks from Glenstal Abbey and Downside Abbey officiated.