At year’s end: Of wish lists and funeral plans

So, at the end of 2023, I published my “Catholic Wish List” for 2024, laying out some hopes for the church that seemed, if not “easy,” then at least reasonable and doable for the truly motivated. Readers said they shared my hopes but believed I was indulging a pipe-dream.

Well, as 2024 closes, we see small signs of progress, here and there. A recent announcement that the Vatican will consider how to address “spiritual abuse,” particularly when “false mysticism” plays a part in the sexual abuse of vulnerable adults by clergy, will directly affect ongoing investigations concerning Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik and others. I’d wished for speedier investigations into such matters and men but the church is being necessarily thoughtful of the long term, here, which is a good thing.

Thoughtfulness is slow-going, though, and other parts of my “wish list” seem stuck in a stifling inertia of bureaucracy, material reluctance or perhaps (to be charitable) indecision.

So, my list remains — undaunted but with date pushed forward. Yet the lack of progress permits me to suggest a different year-end action we might all undertake: Planning our funerals!

After telling a family member that the Gospel reading for the First Sunday of Advent was included in a top-five list of Gospel selections for my funeral, she raised an eyebrow. “Spend a lot of time thinking about your funeral, do you?”

Well, yes, I do, because my funeral will be the last chance I’ll have to tell people what I want them to know! And that Gospel reading reminds us that life can be frightening, but there is consolation and rescue; the world can lead us astray nearly every day, but we will all get to stand before the Son of Man, who we know is True Justice and True Mercy.

My family member took a pass. “It’s too scary, what’s number one on your hit list?”

“Oh, the parable of the Prodigal Son,” I enthused. “A reminder that while the imperfectly penitent child was ‘still a long way off,’ the father came running out to greet him, embraced and kissed him” (Lk 15:20-24). “People might think, ‘well, Lizzie really was still a looong way off, but the Father is merciful…'”

“I like that,” she enthused. “So, you might not go to hell! And there’s always Purgatory, right?”
“See? Don’t you already feel better about me dying?”
“I really do,” she nodded. “I can’t wait to hear what else you want me to know!”
Did you hear that? She “can’t wait.” For my funeral.
The thing is, I have cool things I really do want to “say” to the people I love, in that moment.

Years ago, I was part of a consolation team that helped families plan funeral liturgies while grappling with grief. Often the bereaved were unfamiliar with texts or songs, so I would ask, “What do you think Grandma, (or whomever) would like to say to everyone, if she could?” Their answers helped us to find scriptural readings that would resonate. “Yes,” they’d gasp, “that sounds just like something Grandma (or whomever) would say.”

My funeral list is incomplete, but the family knows there is one, and even if I die before I finalize it, they’ll be able to manage the liturgy with some assurance that they’re hearing things I’ve truly longed for them to understand.

Like Jeremiah 29:11-14 — the great reminder that God has always had a plan for each of us, to redeem us from exile: “For I know well the plans I have for you, says the Lord … plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope…”

Or, like 1 John 1:1-4, which brings the spirit of John’s Gospel prologue (it’s a shame we only get one choice…) while immersing the assembly in this timeless beauty: “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life.”

And, ah my beloved Psalm 90 bringing all the splendid realities and wonders to the fore: “You turn men back to dust and say: ‘Go back, sons of men.’ To your eyes a thousand years are like yesterday, come and gone, no more than a watch in the night.”

I want to tell these good and glorious things to the people I love, one last time. So I am making a list. It is good to make a list and to, at the last, leave a message of joyful hope.

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