Mum's funeral

[Morethanthis71]

My Mum sadly passed away last week, totally out of the blue. My Dad needs me to arrange the funeral and to be honest, it's helping me as it's giving me something tangible to do.

But I've never arranged one before and I haven't been to many funerals so I don't have much experience of what happens. My Mum was Catholic, but not a devout one, my Dad is not, and he doesn't want a religious service although he agrees that we will need a Priest. Mum said she wanted to be cremated, she will not be having a Catholic Mass in line with her requests. This is something that they had both discussed and agreed in advance.

So my question is, what do I get the Priest to do and say? I know he'll know what to do, but how do I make sure he's not 'overly' religious? She will want a Blessing. They don't want any hymns.

I just need to know what to say to him so that I don't offend him but also keep in line with my Mum's wishes.

Sorry for rambling. Nothing seems to be making any sense today.

I am sorry for your loss. The priest will be used to situations similar to you. You can ask for a liturgy which won't include a mass.

Sorry for your loss.

Bumping for you as I’m not Catholic so can’t really offer much advice.

The non Catholic funerals I’ve been involved in, the person doing the service (humanist or minister) comes to the house (perhaps that would be a phonecall/WhatsApp call during covid times) and asks about the persons life. So if a Catholic service is like that you can get that ready to email over or whatever. Saying your mum was born in xx year in xx place to parents xx and xx. Attended whatever school blah blah right up to date. You can make it happy it doesn’t have to be serious. You can mention when she met her future husband and ‘he swept her off her feet at the dancing literally’ or whatever.

You will want to mention names of people who will be at the service like relatives old and young, her friends, workmates, neighbours, bingo or hobby pals etc.

I don’t know how you can ask the priest to tone it down a bit, perhaps you just explain that the majority attendees will not be religious so your mum had asked that the service be welcoming to all. Or something.

Im sure others on MN will be along to offer advice re Priests and the type of services etc.

Apologies if you already know the above stuff, I hope it help as your head must be all over the place.

So sorry about your Mum

You don't have to have a priest especially as your Mum didn't want a catholic service as this is pretty much what you will get with a priest officiating.
Last few funerals I've been to have had a celebrant, don't even think they were humanist, which talked about the life of the person, giving a minute or 2 here and there for 'quiet reflection'. The families had chosen music' which was meaningful to them - the last funeral had a Elvis track

I would think the funeral directors could put you in contact with a local celebrant.

My mum passes away last year and I arranged a celebrant to officiate her funeral but a priest came to the funeral home and carried out a private blessing for family.

I’m sorry for your loss. I think a celebrant might be better too, the crematorium should be able to give you details of local ones.