A funeral and Ice

Yesterday I went to the funeral for my cousin Peg Dolan who reposed at 103 (memory eternal). It's the first time in a very long time I have been in a Catholic Church, and I have to say that the reason aside it was not a pleasant experience.

Our Lady of Good Counsel used to be a beautiful church (my grandparents were among the founding members). Alas, like so many others it has been recovated. They had some sort of new age design that is horribly modern and just weird. There was no fixed crucifix on or near the altar. Just a statue of Jesus suspended over a giant 'O' carved in a section of wall behind the altar with his arms outstretched.

In fairness there were two crucifixes that I saw in the building. One was located in an area segregated behind the altar area which was partitioned and it looked fairly normal. The other one was located by some candles in a stairwell. And that was just WRONG. Not the location. The crucifix. It had Jesus with His feet and left arm nailed to the cross and Him leaning forward with His right arm outstretched holding what looked like a bird in His hand. It seemed like He was trying the get down from the cross and to launch the bird. UGGG

There were of course the usual ugly felt banners including the ubiquitous "if you want peace work for justice" directly to the side of the altar. There was a female altar server and the two priests and deacon serving the funeral were dressed in very modern (which is to say plain) white vestments. With the exception of the consecration, the pall bearers and the Gospel reading (performed by the deacon) all of the various functions of the liturgy were performed by women.

Then there was the music. It was a guitar funeral. Almost the entire liturgy was done to the accompaniment of a guitar with a choir singing all of your favorite 1960's nails on the chalkboard folk hymns. On Wings of Eagles, Let There Be Peace on Earth etc...

The homily was the customary canonization of the recently departed. That said it wasn't bad. The deacon delivered the homily/eulogy and he seemed to know her pretty well. There were some nice and occasionally humorous anecdotes.

After the funeral we all repaired to the basement (that's when I saw the broken crucifix) where we had a very nice meal and I got to catch up with family members I don't see very often. Then it was time to go which brings me to part II of this post, the weather.

It was sprinkling on my way into town (I'm staying with mom out in the country) and by time I left the church it was raining steadily. Now in the northeast I can deal with snow but rain is a little scary especially when the temperature is hovering just above freezing. Between the rain and the melting snow we had water all over the place and predictably as the temperature started to drop everything turned to ice. A thin sheet of ice was already forming by time I got home and it just went down hill from there. I woke up to an icy winter wonderland. Even the newspaper was not delivered because of all the ice. A quick look at the road convinced me that God had decided I was not going to liturgy, so I enjoyed a nice breakfast for a change and have settled in for the day.