Funeral of Pope Francis

[cakeorwine]

Watching it now. I'm not religious - but it is a fascinating watch and a beautiful setting.

I saw that!

I love church bells

There's a school of thought that given the CoE split from the Roman Catholic church and set up in competition it's really not appropriate for the head of the CoE to attend.

well I do hope Trump manages to commend his suit - since it means so much to him! Though actually wasn’t it in fact Vance who attacked his outfit? I seem to think somewhere in that bizarre episode Trump was saying “ I actually like his clothes.”

Ditto the Greek Orthodox Patriarch.

My father regretted it, he was in the navy and said it was a great comfort in wartime to go to any Catholic church anywhere in the world and hear the Mass he would hear at home.

I was a child at the time but it was a big change for older people.

My "moment" was when we had a former CofE priest join our parish as a Catholic priest after female ordination in the CofE. I took Communion from a priest with his wife and children standing next to me. That felt very strange.

That tolling bell has just done me in, remembering my mother in Rome.

I'm Buddhist and I completely agree. I think it's beautiful to see people dedicate their life to what's in their soul.

I grew up across the street from our village church, bells mean home to me.

So now Pope Francis will be taken to the Basilica of St Mary Major on the other side of Rome. This is unusual, the last few Popes chose to be buried in the Vatican city but they can choose where to be buried. The procession across Rome will probably be amazing, I hope the TV covers it.

teh basilica is amazing inside

I'm late 40s and some of the churches we went to had kneeling at the altar rail. Our parish church didn't but we often went to other Masses in other churches(not sure why).
I haven't seen it in a very long time though about from a couple of extraordinary form I have attended.

Someone asked about where the kneeling to receive Holy Communion is coming from. A lot of it is coming out of people who have been to Medjugorje and have found or rekindled their faith there, or people who have come into contact with priests or other people who have been there.
It's very traditional, supposedly following the words of Our Lady who appears every Thursday and tells people how they should behave.

The traditional Latin Mass movement is also growing (even though Pope Francis changed the rules to make it more difficult for priests to celebrate under that form) and there are a lot of young people attending those Masses.

Well I’ll be leaving the tv now to get on with my day. Thank you all for sharing the time, and for the discussions and different viewpoints. ❤️

My mother always thought it lost some of the emotional impact once the Latin was abolished.
I suppose there would have been a unifying aspect of a ritual that is the same and in the same language throughout the world.

I was born in 1972 in Ireland and everyone knelt along the communion rails to take communion throughout my childhood. Though, looking back now, the oddest thing is remembering that one or more other priests, besides whoever was celebrating Mass, would emerge from the sacristy to help out serving communion, each with an altar boy to hold something whose name I’ve forgotten, but which looked like a large fish slice, under the chin of the person receiving communion, in case it fell. (I think my parents’ urban parish habitually had four priests then. Now they’re in a group parish sharing a single priest between three amalgamated parishes.) This would have been before ministers of the Eucharist were a thing.

It's strange to watch the Cardinals processing in, knowing that in a few weeks one of them will be pope but we don't know who it will be yet and the cardinals themselves don't know either. It could be any one of them.
I think that must be a really strange feeling going into the conclave absolutely sure you won't be pope and then suddenly you get elected and then you're on the balcony and they are calling out your papal name.
Obviously as the votes go on you'd be seeing in which direction it's going, but still.
John Paul II was a surprise because there were two others but the vote was split between them and he was the compromise candidate.
Pope Francis wasn't thought to be a candidate but in the first ballot was second and then gradually the number of votes increased, so he had a couple of days to get used to the idea when it was clear the support for him was growing.

Lovely views of Rome.

I grew up in England but it was a very Irish area of a big city, all our priests over the years were Irish and yes Communion was just like you describe except two priests would be at the altar and the third would be outside with the "overspill."

Did anybody hear that on Sky. The coffin of Pope Trump. Oops

Exactly, he may have been advised by Doctors not to go and that he needs to rest.

So true. Also they don't go back to where they've come from if elected, so a man in that group has left everything behind including colleagues, friends, etc. Kind of sad..Hard job being Pope, I get now why we're supposed to pray for him!!

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I remember kneeling at the altar rails to receive communion in the 1960’s . The altar boys ceremoniously laid a white cotton runner along the entire length of the altar rails before communion then removed it near the end of Mass. We were taught to cup our hands under it while the priest made his way along the line so it acted as a bib if the host was dropped.

I had a very embarrassing mishap with it aged about 8 and attending Mass with my school class. I forgot to let it go and stood up after receiving communion and pulled the cloth off the rail 🙈 😆

In his dreams 😂

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