Please accept our sincere condolences if you are now planning a funeral because you recently lost a loved one. If you are planning in advance for yourself, in order for your wishes to be known, we welcome you.
We invite you or your family to participate in planning your loved one’s funeral liturgy as much or as little as you wish. The following information is meant to make you aware of what you will need to do to plan a Mass of Christian Burial.
After the death of a loved one, the family’s first contact is a local funeral home. It is the responsibility of the funeral home to contact the parish office to arrange for the funeral liturgy. The parish office, working with the funeral home, will set the date for the visitation, Mass of Christian Burial, and interment as needed.
Once a date has been established a member of the parish staff will reach out to the family to schedule a meeting with them at the church. This provides an opportunity for us to work with you in choosing the readings, music, and singer as well as to answer any questions the family may have. During this conversation, we have the opportunity to learn about their loved one, so that the funeral liturgy and homily will be both personal and appropriate to the family and to the deceased.
For your convenience, we have posted the Old Testament readings and New Testament readings that are most commonly used at Catholic funerals. We have also posted the planning sheet that we use here at St. David the King, as well as a list of music ideas. We are happy to work with you to answer any questions about music, readings, and any other aspect of the plans for the funeral liturgy.