DETROIT — Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron conducted a prayer service for about 40 local Catholic funeral directors on Holy Saturday in the chapel of the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament for the founding of the St. Joseph of Arimathea Guild.
The archbishop told the funeral directors they provide a great service to bereaved families, saying he and other clergy appreciate what they do.
The idea for the St. Joseph of Arimathea Guild came from Msgr. Russell Kohler, who will serve as the group’s chaplain, said Patrick Lynch of Lynch & Sons Funeral Directors.
Msgr. Kohler, pastor of Most Holy Trinity Parish in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood and Ste. Anne de Detroit Parish in southwest Detroit, came from a family of funeral directors in Monroe County, Lynch added.
The group takes its name from St. Joseph of Arimathea, who asked Pontius Pilate for the body of Christ, so that he could bury the Lord in the tomb he had prepared for himself.
“He’s mentioned in all four Gospels,” Lynch noted.
Lynch’s wife, well-known local opera singer Mary Callaghan Lynch, sang “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord” at the opening of the prayer service. Afterward, the guild members attended a reception at the Arden Park home of the Lynch’s son, Paddy, who is also a funeral director.
It is important for funeral directors to reflect on what they do and see their work as a form of ministry, said Paddy Lynch, who majored in theology at Boston College (where he also played football) and earned his degree in mortuary science from Wayne State University.
“Today, a lot of people in and around funeral services struggle to define what they do — whether it is a trade or a profession. For our family, and for many others, there has always been a sense that it is a vocation,” Paddy Lynch said.
He said there is a high attrition rate among funeral directors, with 50 percent of those who go into the work dropping out within five years of receiving their full accreditation and licensing.
The key to satisfaction in the work of serving the living and caring for the dead is to look at it through a spiritual lens as a form of ministry, Paddy Lynch said.
“I think it’s a testament to my grandfather and father that they had no doubt about who we are and what we do. To say our religious faith ‘informs’ what we do would be an understatement,” he said.
