With a laser focus (absolutely necessary) on our physical safety during the pandemic, there was another challenge that festered alongside that focus, one which has gone silent, or at least it has here in Toronto: the impact that the suspension of public communal funereal practices had on people’s ability to integrate the death of loved one in ways that were meaning making for them.

Yes, in a pandemic-shaped world we need to be and keep each other safe. But can we be both safe and nourished by funereal practices? These were never meant to take away or inoculate us against our grief; rather, they have always acted as a poultice on the woundedness of grief—they have been lifegiving and have shaped our very being, individually, and especially, collectively.

The proposed multi-method study, grounded in a Pastoral Theology framework, asks the question: How has the cessation of these practices affected mourners? It examines the experiences and knowledges of folks who have funeralized loved ones during the Pandemic in small, cemeteried churches in the Greater Toronto Area. It uses Community-based Participatory Research to engage with any who have experienced loss of loved ones and grief, as well as loss of rituals, as well as and other stakeholders as contributors to the project.

The study will develop a resource document to help churches create and share best practices to support people confronting the end of life, to seek wholeness in our shared humanity because, even in a pandemic shaped world, a) we yet profess our creedal faith: “In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God.” and, b) our ministry of accompanying people to the edge of life has not changed. Perhaps, however, the forms and expressions of that ministry are by necessity evolving; this project will remain open to documenting the shifts the pandemic has wrought.