Dydd Gwyl Dewi and rites of passage

It's St David's Day, our patron saint. Daffodils are emerging and bursting into bloom all over. They don't seem to mind cold weather. Prince Charles attended the national Mayoral service at St John's, with Council religious advisor Stuart Lisk steering the occasion. St John's, without a Vicar again, was unable to raise a choir for this occasion and so Stuart arranged for his own Parish choristers to come and sing. With or without a Vicar. This is a great initiative, and I hope it won't be the last. St John's is a church that should be used much more by worshipping communities across the city as a place of worship and witness at the heart of the city, a place of place witness where so many people from all over Wales and the world come and go daily.

I wasn't invited, and couldn't have gone anyway as I had a funeral to take in Ely, substituting for Fr Jesse who is still off sick. It's unusual these days for me to have two funerals on successive days, even more unusual to have two in a row at a crematorium entirely new to me. I was taken to St David's Parish Church for the funeral office - again it was a service thoughtfully prepared for and contributed to by family members. A lad of nineteen confidently delivered an affectionate eulogy to his Grandfather. Later I learned he'd been Head Boy of his school. A boy half his age read a poem he wrote, as his own tribute - another grandson. Four grandsons carried the coffin in and out of church. The family's sadness was cradled with affection and pride.

There was a time when families opted to do little apart from choosing hymns and accepting a rather traditional way of performing the funeral office passively, placing a big burden of responsibility on the pastor, whether he was known to the congregation or not, for the success of the occasion. Reform of the funeral liturgy and development of active ways of dealing with bereavement are increasingly making a difference to rites of passage. 

Personalisation of expressions of mourning and marketing of consumer options in the performance of funerals are leading to families wanting to take ownership of the event in what it to my mind a healthy way. More are prepared to do without a cleric altogether, expressing honestly their dissatisfaction with religion or the manner in which religious funerals are presumed to take place. Many neither wish nor expect to have their wishes contradicted, but invite the pastor to express meaning and values they are less than confident about voicing themselves. They'll accept guidance, but don't want to be dictated to. They have ideas about how a life might be celebrated in a social ritual, but need help with raising its level of meaning. The pastor has to be sensitive in seeking to add value to what mourners wish to express in saying farewell to someone. How vital it is to remain a servant of a process in which others are deeply engaged.