Funeral Question

[Aractus]

I have been asked by the daughter of his second wife (a woman I have never met, just a voice on the phone) if I want the minister to say anything from me at the funeral.

My advice is to speak directly to the priest.

Thank you all your your thoughts, I will probably go and just sit quietly at the back. I don't want any arguments or have any need to stir up bad feelings with "his other family"

Family should sit at the front, members of the Church congregation at the back and friends where they feel comfortable. Church members will know this and will intentionally leave the first rows of seats empty for the family members, and will deliberately sit at the back. And if more family members come in during the service, they will get up and vacate their seats so that those family members can sit as close to the front as possible. Your best option, if you're not close to the other family members, is to sit with any friends that are present - one or two rows back from the other family members. It could even be one of your own friends rather than one of the deceased's. If you want my advice, it would be improper to deliberately sit at the back.

My grandmother died recently, and although I personally didn't organize her funeral, we (that is the family) decided to organize it at her Church which is exactly what she would have wanted. Two of her four children are very atheist, and one is quite anti-religious but neither had any problem with having the funeral at her church. Also, since she had not been to that church for a number of years the priest who had been there has since moved on. So it was held by the present priest of the church. Alternatively you could also have it held by the priest of the deceased present congregation. (I used the word priest deliberately to differentiate between clergy and lay-ministers).

What you would expect at a religious funeral:

a sermon by the priest,
a hymn or a different song,
an eulogy,
other short speeches from family members and/or friends,
a prayer.

Optionally, lay members of the church would provide refreshments after the service has been held, or you can hold these at a different venue - we held them at her house.

You should always hold a funeral the way that the deceased would want.

Any decent priest will go through options for a suitable sermon, this sermon could be as short as 5 minutes or as long as 12 minutes, and again that would normally be up to the family to decide. The family or priest can write a prayer - best to be concise - or you can just use the Lord's Prayer, or if you're an Anglican, a suitable Prayer Book prayer. You can chose anyone you want to say it.

The song or hymn should be chosen based on what the deceased would have liked, it would be usual to pick one of their favourite hymns that made them happiest.

You need to either choose a family member or a close friend to say the Eulogy, or you have the Eulogy split between 2 or more people (they way to do this with more than one person is that each person focuses on a period of the deceased's life chronologically starting from their birth up until their death). If one person gives a Eulogy, you would expect it to be up to 12 minutes long, and then allow other family members to say short speeches around 3 minutes or so long each.

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• Yes. I would say "No, but thank you for asking."

  Absolutely not!