For the first time in 16 years, today I did an Eleanor-Rigby-type burial to which no one came other than the undertaker. The man, 42, died in January, we had a requiem Eucharist for him then and his family struggled through it. In Vermont, there are no winter burials and so we go through a season of spring interments ('spring plantings' in trade talk).
I do up a bulletin for these delayed burials, picking up at the commendation which is where we stop in the winter. Then we move into the committal and the usual rest of the service. When the undertaker came to pick me up, I asked how many bulletins I would need (I had made up 15). He held up his fingers, making a '0.'
And so it was... just him and me. We prayed B into the grave, doing the service as though there were a hundred people surrounding us. B was a Patriots fan — his family has stuck a decal of the Patriots on the gravestone and there were two Patriots bracelets on the marker. When we finished the committal, I cast earth into the grave for each member of the family and then, since I had the shovel, covered the urn until it was no longer visible.
When the gravediggers came down to finish the work, they said: 'You looked so lonely there. We would have come down and been with you if you'd asked.' Consider they were part of the burial... just watching from afar.
Still, it was poignant to have no one from the family, no friends come for this final step. May they know, however, that their husband/brother/son/uncle/father was properly buried in God's and the church's eyes.
A bit later... just so you know and understand.... I don't post these things to make me sound like God's gift to the world qua priest. I write them because I struggle with the pathos that sometimes lands in front of me and because there are others who will pray for this unknown person, knowing that ultimately, God was there whether it was two or 200 of us standing by the grave.
5 comments:
Is this sad, or what?!
As someone with a history of funeral ministry, this struck a chord with me. I have only done one commital (it is customary to have the priest do it, probably as with TEC, or a deacon -but one day it was left to me and the family was fine with it.) and it was for a big family. On a very cold, cold day when you might think such an event would happen.
This makes me sad and wistful, but I am so moved by what I am sure is all the dignity that you brought to this man B.
I think one of the saddest things I've done is when someone just dropped her mother's ashes off at the church and asked us to just inter them for her in the memorial garden. That's all. So I read the committal service and the maintenance guy who dug the hole prayed with me and that was it. Very sad. Especially when I found out later that the mother had a funeral plan on file in the church but her family just didn't want to be bothered.
I think it was a beautiful service with some very compelling and loving moments...I´ll light a candle for ¨B¨ at the tomb of Santo Hermano Pedro when I get to San Francisco el Grande next...the beat goes on.
Thank you for sharing this, Caminante -- and I don't detect an iota of narcissism in your writing this. It is Christian witness and musing on life. You are also creating a community of prayer for this person who had no one to pray for him at the time of commital. The communion of saints is strong and wide and he is part of it -- and we are part of B's life because this.
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