Spanish burial

I was back in the church of San Miguel by eleven this morning for another funeral of a British woman who had been resident in this area for the past quarter of a century, having uprooted totally from the UK and integrated into a new life in the Spanish community. The daughter and son in law with their two small daughters were the chief mourners. The children were beautifully behaved and naturally involved in all the proceedings. Of the twenty other mourners, the majority were local neighbours. A close friend gave a brief tribute in Spanish, the family solicitor read a portion of John's Gospel in Spanish, and I did the rest in English.

We arrived at the Commendation in the service exactly at midday, allowing me fortuitously to pause for the church clock bell to toll the hour. Thankfully, I knew that after thirty seconds it would also chime the Angelus, or in Eastertide, the Regina Caeli. Just one spoken prayer fitted nicely in between the two, to take away the eerie silence, and then we left the church.

With the family and other mourners bearing flowers, we followed the hearse through the barrio, with a police escort to see us up a one way street and across the dual carriageway at an uncomfortable angle to access the cementario. The last time I walked behind a coffin through the streets in clerical garb was thirty seven years ago during the Troubles in Newcastle County Down, at the funeral of one of the town's senior tradesmen, leading a procession of his apprentices - Catholics and well as Protestants - to bury him. At the end of today's quarter mile walk, the departed, whose body had been repatriated to Spain from her native England where she'd died in hospital, was to be entombed in a columbarium level six niche, eighteen feet above ground. 

In the narrow aisle between columbaria walls there was a large portable iron platform, which I climbed up in order to be at eye level with the niche for the prayer of blessing. One of the rare times I ever recall being literally six feet above the congregation leading in prayer. After my descent, two funeral workers manhandled the English imported coffin between them up the stairs and into the niche. Then it was the turn of the mason to ascend and seal it in place. The panel used was thick plywood, the sealant something like polyfiller. It was done neatly, carefully, without haste and took ten minutes. I spoke appropriate meditative scripture sentences into the silence ad lib, and the assembly of mourners seemed quite at ease with this, as it removed the need for trivial conversation. 

In due course a marble memorial panel and facade will be inserted into the front area, similar to the one adorning her late husband's tomb to the left. For the time being, the space is occupied by mourners' flowers. The Spanish lady who'd spoken in church also brought a wreath of roses. These were placed by the tomb of her husband, on the fifth level immediately below. Friends, close together in death, as in life. 

There were quiet appreciative handshakes afterwards, from Spanish and English mourners. As I returned to the church, carrying my robes, I was aware of old men sitting outside noticing me smiling and nodding their  greeting. Dressed as a priest here, you're not invisible in public, as is commonly the case nowadays in Britain. And in these days of clerical scarcity, I guess they're glad to see any new priest around the block, whether they need one or not, as the priest in a community seems less of an oddity to them than it does so much further north. Here a new priest can be a sign of hope for those who want their community to live fully.