St. Peter's Church

This evening the choir sang at a funeral Mass for a former choir member. I guess it's one of the fringe benefits of singing in the choir. When you go, there's a good chance they'll sing you into paradise. She had been sick for a while and was prepared for death. We sang much of the music she wanted at her funeral and sang very well, that is, with emotion and nuance, if not with perfect intonation. Everyone maintained their composure until the Mass was over. Not always easy to do.

I knew Felicia as the old woman who lived around the corner and was from my church but who I didn't "know." After I moved she said she missed seeing me pass by....She was the woman with a very well kept, tan Volkswagon Cabriolet. And I learned that when she was my age she had a Alpha Romeo Spider. She often complimented me for the choir's singing and perhaps mine if she heard me sing the psalm. Mostly I "knew" her from seeing her regularly on Sunday and at parish events--a recognition without a deep knowing.

It was a beautiful, if cold day, and as they closed her casket the setting sun was blazing through the stained glass windows above the altar.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis.