Funeral Music NopeNopeNope

I ask this sincerely.

It is okay to have very standard funeral songs at Masses.

Please be sensible.

Please do not program “Here I Am, Lord” as the opening song at a funeral Mass. Maybe if the guy was an evangelist or apologist… But yeah, it implies weird things, at a funeral, and especially at the beginning.

Yes, I just happened to see this on YT. Many things at the Mass were done well, but most of them were what the family was doing.

There were also some weird/inadvisable things, but all pre-Mass, or in a permissible area. So… Could be better, but it is hard to resist fashion.

The same Mass had a very nice and solemn offertory hymn in Irish, so that wasn’t bad at all. Nice Communion songs too. (I might quibble with the song choices, but they came out well.)

The church was packed, which is always nice to see. It shows love and respect, and it means lots of people are praying for the person’s soul.

And then there was a recorded secular song played as a reflection. No. That is okay at a funeral home or at a reception, not at church.

Nobody sang the “Ad Paradisum,” as the priest just recited it prosily; and then the final song was secular again?! So strange! Again, a nice song, but better for outside church, surely!

I know, grief makes it hard to think. I have messed up planning/helping too, because experience only comes with attending a lot of funerals.

But appropriate religious music, especially sacred music of great solemnity and beauty, is what you need at a funeral Mass. You can play and sing the other stuff at other times during the funeral process.

So it is good if your parish has a standard format that is sensible and touching and lovely, so that you have an easier time doing it right.