Several years ago, a few SFX parishioners ‘stumbled upon’ a funeral Mass on a weekday morning.

They didn‘t know the deceased person or his family members. They just happened to be in church that morning and decided to sit in for the service.

It was an eye-opener. There was no choir. No lector. There were few people in church for the final Eucharistic celebration for the deceased.

The same sad scene was replayed the following week at another funeral Mass. Just the deceased in a coffin and his family members. No accompanying music when the coffin was wheeled in. No representatives of the parish community were at hand to offer solace or to welcome the bereaved family.

It was from those episodes that that same group of parishioners decided to come together and started providing ad hoc choir, lector, commentating and lay ministry services for funeral Masses. Our parish priest at that time, Fr Lawrence Andrew as well as Fr Alberto Irenus both
supported the formation of this group.

Fr Lawrence suggested that the group be named ‘St Raphael‘s Companions’—an apt name as the archangel is known as the healer. When all’s said and done, we try to bring some healing to family of the deceased by making the entire funeral service as meaningful and seamless as possible.

St Raphael’s officially became a Ministry under Fr Norris Seenivasan. At present, we have up to 20 members with some 10 of us serving regularly.

St Raphael needs more parishioners to join us. With more members, we will be able to expand our services to include praying at wake services at the Paul Miki Room.