I just finished watching an incredibly powerful speech by Vice-President Biden to families of troops who had been killed. Now, our VP is known for doing amazing things in speeches... though those things are often embarrassing, right? However, this speech was as far from that as possible.
Biden spoke to these grieving families about grief, and specifically about how he dealt with his own grief when, as a 29-year-old newly-elected United States Senator, he got a phone call telling him that his wife and daughter were killed in a traffic accident, and they didn't know if his sons would survive or not. The Vice-President was truly amazing in this speech. He was vulnerable. He was open. He was candid. He was compassionate. He was honest. He was hopeful.
However, he also said something else that grabbed my attention. He talked about how, even now, his current family gathers every December 18, the anniversary of that tragic accident, and has a funeral mass said for his deceased wife and daughter. When I heard him say that, my "Protestant brain" began doing what we Protestants always have done... protested! (Hence the name, yes?) The whole theology behind a "funeral mass" is certainly biblically questionable, at least from my perspective. However, in the context of all that Biden was saying, it suddenly occurred to me to look at this practice of our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers in a different light.
Anniversaries of deaths are difficult. I still can vividly remember March 29, 1962, and all of the events that evening surrounding my Mom's suicide. I was 10 years old. Every March 29 I remember... even all these decades later. It's not painful now, but I remember. Every July 4 I remember that it was my Mom's birthday. She would have been 97 years old this year if she were still alive. I remember. How helpful would it be to have some liturgical means by which to translate those memories into opportunities to express faith? How helpful would it be to have some vehicle by which to wrap those memories in an act of worship?
Maybe a "funeral mass" doesn't make sense in my theological understandings of things... but it makes sense to me spiritually and emotionally. Is there something we Protestants might do that is true to our beliefs while still providing some sensible help in grieving? I think there must be... and I think I'll either find it or write it.
