Joe Pisani is a local writer who recently published an opinion piece in the Stamford Advocate (“An Obituary for the Art of Mourning,” Oct 2, 2025). In it, Pisani described his father’s ritual of perusing the obituary section of the daily newspaper, occasionally commenting to his wife when he noticed a familiar name. When someone he knew died, Pisani’s father, a carpenter, “put on one of his two ties, a white shirt and his brown tweed suit jacket – as if he were preparing for a job interview at IBM – and drove to the funeral home to say a last goodbye to a second or third cousin or his old buddies from the East Side.” Pisani’s story reminded me of my own father, who also habitually reads the obituary section, referring to it as “the Irish funny papers.” I remember him telling me about some of the funerals he would go to, including those of gangsters he investigated during his career in law enforcement. I was always struck by the humanity of that gesture, of going to pay his respects as a fellow sinner, asking for God’s tender mercy on behalf of a troubled soul.
Pisani laments that our culture’s habits have changed when it comes to the treatment of the dead. “More than once, I’ve missed the death of an acquaintance because no one called or placed an obituary. In other cases, there was no wake or funeral, probably because public mourning isn’t a priority with the younger generations.” But something important is lost when people don’t have wakes or funerals for their loved ones. We forget how to grieve together. We become less humane. Death is reduced to a medical event, an awkward subject better left undiscussed, or a ghoulish spectacle associated with the unholy. “But grieving is a necessary part of life,” observes Pisani, “and an extremely important part as you get older and lose the ones you love.” That’s why going to wakes and funerals, visiting cemeteries, and getting Mass cards to send to grieving loved ones are things we need to teach young people to do.
Recently, my cousin was going through some of his elderly mother’s things, and in several shoeboxes by her bed he found an enormous collection of prayer cards from wakes and funerals she had attended over the years, some for people who had died 60-70 years ago. “Catholic baseball cards,” he called them. She had kept them as a reminder to pray for relatives, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and people from the parish whose names otherwise would have been forgotten, but who still exist and are in need of the prayers of the living. I was struck by the humanity of that gesture too.
Next Sunday, Nov 2, is All Souls Day, a day the Church considers so important that it must be celebrated even if it falls on a Sunday. The Church also makes special indulgences available for those who pray for the dead. In years past, our diocese has hosted special Masses in the Catholic cemeteries throughout Fairfield County. But because parishes will be celebrating All Souls Day together at Sunday Mass this year, there will be only one cemetery Mass in the diocese, celebrated at 1pm by Bishop Caggiano at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Trumbull.
Posted 10/25/25
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 