Need help planning a catholic funeral!

[Totallybannanas]

I haven't been to many funerals and certainly not Catholic ones. Dad only requests are for a catholic funeral, cremation, and chosen songs Time to say goodbye and Nearer to my god be thee. I have no idea what songs .to.choose and how to fit his chosen songs into the service and what order to do things. We aren't having a mass. So I need a entry song, maybe a hymn? songs for reflection and exit song. I guess I can have more of needed. I like make me a channel of your peace, lord of all hopefullness. Dad also love Hallujah by LC. Should I put Time to say goodbye on during the tribute/reflection or at the end of the service? Also should I play Nearer to my god be thee or sing it as a hymn? Also do I have to do a eulogy? I would like to have some words said about dad and his character but I'm not sure I was to read it myself.

He was a very staunch Catholic with a certificate from the pope for his service but hadn't lived in the area very long and due to ill health only attended sporadically.
In my area you wouldn't attend a funeral unless you knew the deceased but this was Central Belt Scotland where they obviously do things differently.

Yes agree.
Although readings etc are made for the dead person
Or at least they are in our churches in Westmeath and Tipperary. I assume the format is much the same everywhere

as people have said it would be unusual not to have a requiem mass - at my dads funeral I did a eulogy and my brother read a quite non religious poem but the priest knew my dad well - crematorium was just a blessing and v quite

Not in my experience and I have been to loads. I think it is generally location specific as some priests/bishops are stricter than others. Most of the funeral masses I've been to have included items relevant to the deceased brought up by family members at the offertory, family members doing prayers of the faithful that are relevant to the deceased/family and a eulogy done by either a family member or the priest instead of a sermon. Music is variable but won't tend to be too out there but doesn't have to be strictly religious.

Not just a central Scottish thing Southern England and London area here and it’s the same as you experienced
Plus in Ireland where my family hail from
( Although in our small Irish towns everyone knows everyone so you wouldn’t be amongst strangers )

Ive popped into our church to light some candles and there has been funerals on. It’s fine.

My SiL was told grudgingly by the priest that she could read a eulogy but had to keep to 5 minutes which was a bit difficult considering he luved for 95 years.

It was my first Catholic funeral and I just felt it was very impersonal. But the regular Catholic relatives thought it was a lovely service.

It's just what you're used to I suppose

Ask the funeral director to guide you through it, find the priest, suggest the church etc if you don’t know where to start. If your dad wanted a Catholic funeral, he meant he’d like Mass. Sorry for your loss.

I’m not religious but was raised catholic and my parents were believers and lifelong church goers. They both had catholic funerals organised by me.

A ‘proper’ catholic funeral includes mass. If the congregation are largely catholic, there will an expectation of communion.

As it’s been yonks since I attended mass, I was pissed off that the funeral was not separate from the daily mass, so there were loads of randoms there. Because of this, do NOT print the location of the wake on your order of service, unless you want strangers to rock up for a free meal and bar 😂

We would’ve liked secular readings, (I wanted to read If I should Go by Joyce Grenfell and my husband was going to read
Dylan Thomas) but this wasn’t allowed, so we had to have bible passages.

My parents wanted a particular piece of music played at each other’s funerals, a traditional Irish air, but it was not permitted in the church as non-secular. We had to play it at the graveside instead.

Cremation is not the norm for Catholics, although it’s fine if that’s your choice.

Edited to add - priest had no issue at all with eulogies read by family members.

ALot is going to depend on the priest. FIrst things first given them a ring - avoid sundays, or mass times all of which will be published. Just explain everything to him and go from there. Norm is no "modern songs" in terms of none religious but everything else is fine. Eulogy as others said isn't the norm in church but some do allow it - My Mums they allowed it as she was a very active church member and we had lived in the area for many many years. THe Church was packed to the rafters and it wasn't small, it was lovely to see the community come together like that - every single person knew her. If your Dad din't attend that church there is nothing wrong with the service being back at his old church - that is up to you. FOr the crematorium if you go that route rather than burial, the service is more forgiving and you you can have a non denomiational service allowing for modern songs, poems and eulogies etc. If it is a burial the cemetery will have a chapel and pretty much same rules as for the crem.

The funeral directors could also help although they may charge for this