On the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, my schola was blessed to sing for the OF funeral Mass of the mother of one of our singers. This internally and externally beautiful lady, like St. John Paul, had modeled a life of suffering offered for others during an eleven-year fight with various cancers. The funeral Mass was planned in advance, and although the immediate family (the deceased, her husband, and the singer daughter) would have preferred an EF Requiem, they decided that because so many of their family members are OF attendees or fallen away Catholics, they wanted to have the OF funeral Mass, but as close to the EF (and to what the Missal actually has) as possible, as a means of evangelisation by beauty.

I have attached a pdf of the bulletin, with a final page that lists the prelude and postlude music. It is an odd size as the original bulletin was an 8.5"x5.5" booklet of 8 pages.

There were about 300 persons in attendance, the schola of 14 plus myself conducting/singing/fluting, and our regular organist (all in the loft). Overwhelmingly, the comments afterwards were "I/We have never been to such a beautiful/meaningful/comforting funeral" and "I never knew a Catholic funeral could be like that." The Mass took place in a beautiful five-year-old church built in a traditional style, and was offered ad orientem at the high altar, with four additional priests in addition to the celebrant; they served as the lectors, gave the homily, and assisted with Communion (which was received kneeling at the altar rail).

I do concur with someone(s) in an earlier funeral Mass discussion who said that it seems most un-pastoral to ask newly grieving families to have to make all the multitudinous choices in the OF, and that the EF seems so much more suited to being pastoral in that it offers the mourning what the Church offers; and would not minimizing the choices in music at an OF funeral be simpler and more pastoral for the family? (I am paraphrasing this poorly, I think.)

Because the choices for this Mass were made in advance and then confirmed several days before the death, it was easier to make choices, and every choice had a specific reason and meaning for the family (and people who knew them knew why). If only we could encourage this pre-planning. (This also served to remind our son that my husband and I will rise up and call him NOT BLESSED if we do not have EF sung Requiems when the time arrives! [Not that he really needs it; as an active-duty Army officer, he has to be grateful if there is even a Catholic chaplain available in addition to the 'generic Christian chaplain', and the EF is nowhere in sight.])