A tragedy...

I was speaking to a friend of mine recently about the tragedy of practicing Catholics coming from a secular family. When they die, and they have not specifically indicated their funeral arrangements in a will or however those things work, naturally the funeral arrangements are left to the secular family, who may have a deep-seated contempt for the Faith, or who may simply (and this is most likely to be the case) not know the first thing about Catholic funerals. What follows will depend upon how much or little they know, the discretion and prudence of the priest (if there is one - the secular, and therefore stupid, family may not even organise a Requiem Mass) and other circumstances. My grandfather had this problem when he died in 2001. My grandfather, a man who took pride in the fact that he had not missed a single Sunday Mass in his life, was sent to his long home to the sound of All Things Bright and Beautiful. I have seen far worse than this at a funeral, but I came away afterwards (I was 13 at the time, and then knew merely the rudiments of Liturgy) feeling very sour for my grandfather. He was also cremated, specifically against his wishes.

Why do I get the feeling that when I die (which could well be tomorrow, or later today, to be grim) this is exactly what will happen to me? Yea more...mine is the sort of family that, knowing my liturgical orthodoxy, would (out of sheer spite) just go to any Modernist priest and have a New Rite requiem with 1970s hymns gallore, and a sort of ''prayer service'' at the crematorium afterwards...that is if they do this much for me. It is necessary to think how far hatred can go...