Friday, February 11, 2011

Early morning shocker part 3

I haven't posted prior to today because I needed to get my thoughts in order.
It's been a few days since Delene's "memorial".
You'll note I now put it in quotes - because it wasn't a memorial, it was an Intercessory Mass.
Talk about blindsiding - first I find out after 10 years of knowing someone that they were Catholic. Then, I arrive at what is ostensibly a memorial service to find out that it's a full blown Mass.
For someone who in all reality, wasn't Catholic, was certainly not religious, and conducted only because of familial guilt.
I arrived late because I had issues finding the church where the service was being held, and signed the guest book. I took a program and a prayer card without looking at them and entered the chapel, taking a seat in the rear pew.
At that point, I began to take stock of my surroundings - and realized I was in the middle of a Mass, not a memorial service.
I looked at the program, and then at the prayer card, and promptly folded them up and put them in my pocket, thought another second about the hypocrisy involved, and left.
I am a lot of things, however I avoid hypocrisy whenever possible.
Hypocrisy? Oh yeah. That service wasn't about Delene - it was her estranged family working through the guilt of her suicide by conducting an Intercessory Mass.
And don't hand me that tripe about "funerals are for the living".
Further hypocrisy - Delene wasn't a practicing anything. She probably considered herself Christian, but certainly not Catholic.
Catholicism teaches that suicide is a Mortal Sin - it ranks up there with murder as one of the Big Sins - for which you are condemned to Hell, no redemption.
What an Intercessory Mass is supposed to do is enlist the aid of a Saint in getting you out of Hell.
In Delene's case, because of her love of animals, they chose St. Francis of Assisi.

Delene, I hope that where ever you are you know the peace that eluded you in life.
I personally believe you've found that you've already been reincarnated because of your actions, however those beliefs are mine and mine alone.
Regardless, I wish you only peace.

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