If you attend someone's wake or funeral, and there is a guestbook, please sign it. Legibly. Printing is good! Then that little space for your address? Write that in too. Again, printing works. Alternately, if you bring a card because, for example, you've bought the deceased a Mass or some prayers***, legibly printing your name and address or affixing an address label is swell. All of this is especially important if the survivor(s) are unlikely to know who you are or, if they do, have no idea what your current mailing address might be.
Because, seriously, the bereaved would *like* to thank you for your kindness, and if you make it impossible or at least very very difficult, they will be sad and frustrated. Do you want to make the bereaved frustrated or more sad than they already are? No. No, you do not. Because you are a good, thoughtful person and that's why you expressed condolences in the first place!
xoxo
***you non-Catholic types may think this kind of thing went out in the Middle Ages, but you would be wrong. I think buying prayers for deceased loved ones is what keeps most of these monastic orders solvent. They're not all brewing beer or making jam, you know.
2 comments:
Personally, I think Indulgences are the way to go.
I used to prefer it when people would leave the nice Mass card that said who sent it, either miraculously minit-printed or legibly written by some religious.
That saved them the trouble of either legibility or literacy. Some of my family connections were lucky they could still hold a pen, I suppose, what with age and the libations at the wake. But those were Irish wakes: different?
And I'm all for religious orders just praying for people. It's within their primary skill set. Not like, say, politics.
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