ar all,



 

The Requiem Mass arrangements for Fr. Reginald DeFour have been provided and are as follows:



 

“A Requiem Mass using a catafalque, without the body, for Father Reginald A. DeFour, CSSp, will be held on Thursday, December 16, at 6:00 PM, at Saint Vitus Catholic Church, 607 4th Street, San Fernando, CA 91340.

Father DeFour's Order, The Holy Ghost Fathers, has requested a private burial for him which will be in Hemet.

Please continue to keep him in your prayers. May God bless you all.

'Keep up the prayers.'

As Fr. De Four would say.”

Take care and God bless.

Under what circuмstances may a Requiem Mass be celebrated using a catafalque?

If I could, I'd like to have that done for my father.

That was me.  I didn't click the "not anonymous" box.

Under what circuмstances may a Requiem Mass be celebrated using a catafalque?

If I could, I'd like to have that done for my father.Good Morning and a Blessed Second Sunday of Advent,

 
I am defiantly not a rubricist, but as I’m not unread on liturgical history, I was a pre VII altar server, and I work for a funeral home, this question made me curious.
 
There was a simplification of some of the liturgical rubrics about 1960, which were incorporated into the 1962 missal … this could be a confusing time for a young alter server when serving Mass between older and younger priests.  I am thinking, from some context, that the use of a catafalque was eliminated with the 1960 rubrics, though I can’t cite “chapter and verse” and I could be wrong.  I’ve never seen a catafalque other than in pictures and I can’t say if the parish I grew up in had one, as I never saw one used after becoming an altar server, which would have been about 1962.
 
I’ve thought that a catafalque was usually used before the 1960 rubrics at what might be referred to as a “memorial requiem Mass” … i.e. a Mass offered for a deceased faithful after the funeral requiem Mass on the day of burial, but also it could be used at the “funeral requiem Mass” when the body could not be present for some reason.
 
Citing “The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described” by Fathers Adrian Fortescue and J. B. O’Connell (I have a copy of the eleventh edition from 1960, the first edition was published in 1917), there is this statement:

This is the rule when the body is present physically or morally (that is, at the funeral ceremony when, for some exceptional reason, the body cannot be brought to the church).  When the body is not present, either physically or morally, the foot of the catafalque is always nearer the altar.

I also referenced "Matters Liturgical" by Father Joseph Wuest, C.SS.R. (the 1956 English translation, Fr. Wuest's Latin edition was first published in 1889), which also seemed to indicate that a catafalque could be used at a funeral Mass when the body could not be present for exceptional circuмstances.
 
To have a catafalque present one may need to find a priest comfortable using the pre 1962 missal rubrics, and after that, a chapel that actually one.  If a catafalque is needed it wouldn’t be that complex to construct one.  As a point of information (my funeral home personage coming into play here) the word “catafalque” is sometimes used synonymously for “bier” or “church truck”, i.e. a stand to place a casket or body on.  In the context of this discussion a “catafalque” would be something that resembles a “casket and its stand” and draped in black, when the remains cannot be present.
 
If it’s not practical to construct a “catafalque” SimpleMan might visit with the funeral home which handled his father’s final arrangements (or any other funeral director he may be acquainted with) as perhaps an empty casket on a church truck could be used as a catafalque.  Most funeral homes have rental caskets (a nice wood or metal shell with an unfinished interior into which an upholstered cardboard receptacle can be placed; the cardboard receptacle is removed after the funeral to be buried or cremated, the shell can be reused.  As a sidebar and point of information, in Washington where I live, and in most other states in my understanding, once a body has been placed in a casket that casket can never be reused for another person, the empty shell rental casket with changeable interior being the exception.


To avoid confusion, and in my understanding, a catafalque taking the place of a casketed body is draped to the floor with a black cloth in addition to the black pall placed on top.  If I weren't so far away I would be honored to assist in any way, but I hope it will all work out.

A funeral Mass requires the body.

For a requiem Mass at other times, such as anniversary of death, I think it's just a matter of convincing the priest to have the catafalque set up and to arrange servers for the absolution.

Okay, I may be betraying some ignorance here, but what's the difference?

Due to circuмstances involving poor catechesis and family sensibilities, my father did not desire a funeral Mass.  I was forced to respect this decision.  Prayers were recited at the graveside.  To this day, neither my mother nor my son can bear to go to his resting place, they've never been there --- I visit about once a week, and if I didn't, he would have nobody to honor him in this fashion.  We have no close family within hundreds of miles.

What I was thinking, was basically a "delayed funeral", with a catafalque serving in place of the body.  Again, unless I could persuade someone to accompany me, I would very possibly be the only person in attendance, aside from the priest and at least one acolyte.  (I would not wish to serve my own father's funeral Mass, I could, but I'd prefer not to.)  This way, my father would have what he did not have when he was laid to rest, and given that he now sees things in the light of eternity, he would definitely not have a problem with it.  He has already had Masses said for him, and I also arranged for thirty consecutive Gregorian Traditional Latin Masses which are supposed to said sometime within one year from this past July.

Is this something that would be possible?  Perhaps in a priest's private home chapel?  (My long-range plan for retrofitting an alcove room in my house as a small chapel with an altar is on hold for right now, that'll be years in the future.)

Okay, I may be betraying some ignorance here, but what's the difference?

I probably should have asked: the difference between what, exactly?

If you're asking about the catafalque itself, I've only seen one chapel that used an actual casket.

Many had rectangular box made of plywood, sometimes shaped like a coffin, which was covered with the black casket cover used for funerals.

From the ceremony perspective there is little difference other than a catafalque is not (normally) carried out in procession like a casket. I can only remember a catafalque for Nov 2 and one sung anniversary requiem.

If you're part of some chapel, you must have some masses outside Sunday that people attend?

Technically one or two servers is enough to assist the priest with the absolution after Mass, but you can have five (mc, th, cb and 2 acs).

I had in mind a private Mass celebrated on a day other than Sunday, either at a chapel, possibly the funeral home chapel --- they have a bare-bones, ecuмenical chapel that would only need a makeshift altar --- or even at a priest's private home chapel, if he has one.

This is not something that is going to happen right away.  It would take some major explaining to my mother, who is still in a state of mourning and her poor catechesis would make it very difficult for her to "get her head around" something like that, and my absence, perhaps even out of town, would have to be explained.  She is almost blind, 91 years old, has only me to do work and run errands for her, and it is difficult for me to get away long enough to do something like that.  I have not been away from her, except to take my son on two short vacations within a two-hour drive, for more than part of a day (for Mass or to run errands) since my father's passing, and the approach of Christmas is making her grief even more acute.  This would be a profoundly sensitive subject, and I still have to figure out a good way to handle it.

(As for the short vacations, she is very independent-minded, she lives in my smaller house that is easy to navigate, and she has neighbors she could call on in an emergency.  And I have free-standing security systems set up six ways from Sunday.)