Candlelight Vigil

Mourning

in gentle light

by Fr. Daniel P. McCarthy, OSB

When I suggest to the bereaved that we receive the body of their beloved deceased into church during a candlelight vigil, their gut reaction is: “Yes! We want that.” I knew the beauty of this service could offer consolation to the grieving.

In December 1993 I was appointed pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Bendena, where Abbot James grew up. I was charged by Abbot Owen, to prepare the parish to become part of a grouping of three parishes, before I left to pursue further studies in liturgy at Sant’Anselmo in Rome, where I now teach. Eighteen months later I was appointed pastor also of St. Charles Parish, Troy, and St. Joseph Parish, Wathena, forming the tri-parishes of Doniphan County Kansas.

The difficulty in developing the funeral practices of a parish lie foremost in not pressuring or offending people in their time of grief, but also in gradually developing a vision for renewed funeral practices suited to these people and their community. Eventually a family agreed to celebrate the funeral vigil, which is basically the Liturgy of the Word, but I soon realized that we would have to pick two different sets of readings, one for the vigil and the other for the funeral mass, and, even more daunting a task, I would be expected to give two homilies.

At other times we celebrated evening prayer for the dead first from the official book, and then we borrowed the monastic practice of the Abbey, but the contemplative liturgy of the abbey was not well suited to the more active celebration of a parish.

The key insight came during a course I took on the Liturgy of the Hours at Notre Dame. I learned that the monastic celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours is different from the cathedral or parish tradition. What we needed, I realized, was to revive aspects of the parish celebration. This is what we came up with:

At evening twilight, while tolling the bell, we brought the casket to the baptismal font at the entrance of church where the Easter candle was already lit. After all had gathered, I sang “Christ our Light” and all responded “Thanks be to God.” We passed the flame from the Easter candle around – the candle-light gave a gentle comfort to all present. Then we sang the hymn Now Fades All Earthly Splendor to the tune of The Church’s One Foundation. I then sprinkled the casket with holy baptismal water directly from the baptismal font itself, perhaps from the very font where the deceased had been baptized. Several women next clothed the casket with the funeral pall. Because the funeral pall corresponds to the baptismal garment, and thus to the alb, it should not be designed to coordinate with the cope or chasuble of the presider.

We carried the casket further into church and set it before the altar. During this procession we sang the Subvenite, rendered as “Receive her/his soul, you angels” arranged by Joan Wingert. The angels receiving and presenting the deceased before God parallels our carrying and presenting the body of the deceased to God in prayer. We sang the same hymn as we carried the body out of church at the end of the funeral mass. In order to introduce this hymn to the parish communities, we sang it at mass as the conclusion to the prayers of the faithful first after notification of someone’s death and again when the bereaved attend mass following the funeral. I have never seen an assembly sing this beautiful piece so well.

Evening prayer continued with an offering of incense and singing Psalm 140/141, As Incense Let my Prayer Arise, sung to the tune of Amazing Grace, as we burned incense in an earthenware bowl placed on the altar. Next we sang one or two other Psalms in the form of hymns such as On Eagles’ Wings. After each psalm we observed a period of silence, followed by an invitation to pray. All stood for a psalm prayer composed to reflect the inspiration of the

Fr. Daniel McCarthy became a monk of St. Benedict’s Abbey in 1983. He is a lecturer in liturgy at the Pontifical Liturgy Institute, Sant’Anselmo, Rome and the Liturgy Institute, London. He is a guest professor at the Catholic University Leuven (KU Leuven). He writes and lectures on mass prayers, church architecture, and the Latin language.

You can attend Fr. Daniel’s lectures on designing or renovating a church for the celebration of liturgy. The First Liturgy Week Architecture for Liturgy I will be held Monday-Friday, January 20-24, 2020 at the St. John Paul II Center, Denver Colorado. www.architectureforliturgy.org/liturgy-week-1

psalm for the occasion of a funeral. After saying, “Amen,” the assembly sat down again for the next psalm. The psalmody need not be prolonged because the power of the rite comes especially from active participation in the ritual and the force of the rite itself.

A brief text from scripture was then read by a lector, and a personal reflection could follow. We sang the Canticle of Simeon, “Lord, let your servant go in peace” to the familiar tune of Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.

The intercessions were followed by the Lord’s Prayer and a final prayer. A simple invitation was extended to keep vigil that evening and perhaps throughout the night until the celebration of the funeral mass the next morning. All were then invited to share a sign of peace. There was no formal ending to this liturgy, only a gentle moving into the vigil.

After celebrating this rite once, it became immediately clear that this order of service is parallel to the rites of Christian initiation at the Easter vigil. Both begin with a service of light and a hymn to Christ the Light. Baptism is recalled in sprinkling the casket and clothing it with the white baptismal garment. Both involve a vigil culminating in the celebration of the Eucharist. This celebration provides a ritual fulfillment of baptism and the Easter vigil.

The leader for evening prayer need not be ordained. This occurred after I had left the parish, but before my successor arrived. During this interval the funeral of a parishioner was held and Margaret “Peggy” Stanton, who had helped to develop this liturgy, led its celebration.

Archbishop George Stack of Cardiff in Wales, has commissioned lay ministers to accompany the dying and the bereaved. He invited me to present this liturgy to them at a workshop held at Llantarnam Abbey on 19 September 2018. A booklet was prepared in which Peggy shared these words with the people of Cardiff:

“We developed this service by responding to the cry of the heart among our bereaved, and we hope that this service may help other communities likewise respond to the cry of the heart. We learned that people will teach us how to respond to their needs, if we are attentive to them personally in their mourning, and if we are well prepared in pastoral care and liturgy”.

My colleague, the newly elected Abbot Olivier-Marie Sarr of Keur Moussa Abbey in Senegal, asked me to write up our experience in Doniphan County for publication in the journal of our faculty, Ecclesia Orans (from which this article was adapted), which has an international readership, so that he could use the article to teach his course here in Rome on “Liturgy in Cultures”. The experiences of the Tri-parishes of Doniphan County Kansas continues to inspire an ever broader hearing. I’ll conclude with the words of Peggy to the bereavement ministers of Wales:

“I’m delighted that the pastoral care we developed in our rural communities contributes to the pastoral ministry you show to people in their time of need. This service comes from the Church’s treasury, but its beauty speaks far beyond and stands as a witness of the faith of the parish community offered to all who come to us in their mourning. Again, it is beautiful that what we have done enhances the beauty of what you do.”

Each year on the solemnity of All Souls the monastic community remembers our deceased brothers in a similar liturgy. Above, Abbot James prays over the grave of a deceased monk.