Other Prayers & Reflections
till the shades lengthen, and the evening come,
and the busy world is hushed, a
and the fever of life is over,
and our work is done.
Then in His mercy, may he give us a safe lodging,
a holy rest, and peace at last. Amen.
(Cardinal Newman)
(Peig Sayers reflecting on her life on the Great Blasket Island)
It is a simple life we lived here,
But nobody could say that it was comfortable.
Often during life I have known God’s holy help,
Because I was often in the grip of a sorrow
From which I could not escape.
Then the need was greatest, God would lay his merciful eye upon me,
and the clouds of sorrow would be gone without trace.
In their place would be a spiritual joy whose sweetness I cannot describe here.
We helped each other, and lived in the shelter of each other.
But my life is now spent, like a candle, and my hope is rising every day
that I’ll be called into the eternal kingdom.
May God guide me on this long road I have not traveled before.
I think that everything is folly except for loving God.
(Translated by Seamus Ennis, Oxford University Press)
We give them back to you, 0 Lord,
who first gave them to us;
and as you did not lose them in the giving,
so we did not lose them in the return.
Not as the world gives do you give,
0 Lover of souls.
For what is yours is ours also,
if we belong to you.
Life is unending because love is undying,
and the boundaries of this life.
are but an horizon
and an horizon is but the limit of our vision.
Lift us up, strong Son of God,
that we may see further.
Strengthen our faith
that we may see beyond the horizon.
And while you prepare a place for us,
as you have promised,
prepare us also for that happy place;
that where you are we may be also,
with those we have loved forever. Amen.
Lord, I’m grieving. It hurts so bad.
My emotions are churning, my mind is racing, my spirit is adrift.
I reach out to you because I have nowhere else to go.
What I have lost I cannot regain now my life is shattered, how can I rebuild ?
I see only darkness within and without.
The pain, the uncertainty, the fear, the numbness.
How will I ever get beyond these days ?
You ask me to believe in you O God.
The God of perfect love – and I do.
But why have you allowed this to happen ?
I have no answers
I have only your promise.
Never to leave me or forsake me.
May this be enough to get me through another day.
I rest in you, my strength and my redeemer,
Please, oh please, stay at my side.
Today and everyday. Amen.
Jesus, Heart of Compassion,
grant to them and to us also everylasting happiness.
May the three oldest and youngest in the City of Glory
show us the way to heaven and take our souls there with them.
Recognising the beauty of an Irish Lament – Marie Murray
Whatever has been lost in Irish culture, the tradition of funeral going has not died. Attending funerals remains an integral part of cultural life.
Funeral going is psychologically complex. It is comforting to those who mourn, recognition of the life of those who have died; and a celeration of their existence. It allows lament for their departure and acknowledgment of the loss of those who loved them.
Funeral attendance is a statement of connection, care, compassion and support. It encircles those who grieve and enriches those who attend because it connects each person there to the profundity of living and the inevitability of death. Funeral attendees witness the raw emotions of grief and the extraordinary capacity of the human spirit of love.
Traditional Irish funerals have their own tone, history and vocabulary well documented in Irish literature, verse, story and song. They have their past and present rituals. They are comforting in their predictability.
At funerals there is consciousness of the pre-mortem vigil that will have occurred if the death was lingering or the shock for mourners if it was not. There is post-mortem display of the remains, requiring sensitivity about who should attend at that stage. There is the funeral itself drawing together people who may be disconnected to the event.
In the front pew the mourners are aligned, ranked by relationship to the deceased and by their shared memories of a collective past. There is the shuffling of attendees towards them, murmurs of sorrow for their troubles, of deep condolences, of handshakes and hugs, the squeezing of arms and promises of post-funeral support.
There is consciousness in that line of sympathizers of the ineptitude and ineffectiveness of words. There is tongue tied compassion, frustrated by an inability to say something of comfort or understanding about what cannot be understood. This is because however formulaic funeral rituals may be, each grief, as each life is unique.
While the three-day ‘wake’ may be no more there is hospitality that must be given and offering sustenance to those who have traveled a distance continues to this day. While the lament or caoineadh may not be expressed in keening or song, the beauty of lament is still understood.
The funeral is the place where the details of the death oare recounted, where memories are revived and connections made. As clusters of people gather together before or after proceedings there is an emotional edge that makes laughter louder and sorrow deeper, and the alternation of these emotions stark in the short spaces between them.
Each time we attend a funeral we confront our own mortality. If we have not yet experienced personal loss we are made aware of the emotions and rituals that surround it and the sacredness of sorrow. If the territory of death is familiar to us then resonances are evoked and we have the chance to revisit our own remembrance of others who have died.
The extent of funeral attendance in Ireland often bemuses our neighbours in England, when whole businesses close for a day as a mark of respect, when offices are abandoned to attend mortuaries and removals and when all day journeys are undertaken to be at the funeral of someone whom one may not have known as a mark of respect for the bereaved.
But there is psychological reason, social solidarity and cultural cohesion in funeral attendance, and even as the ceremonies, the belief systems they operate from or the expression of grief may change, the meaning of marking death remains and long may we travel highway and byway to do so.