My Funeral

I should like my burial service to take place at the Church of St. Ignatius of Antioch and to follow as closely as its rector deems fit the Order of the Burial of the Dead prescribed by the 1559 Book of Common Prayer, which can be found in my bookcase. It is my preference that there be no reference to my name except in its proper place after “for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this N . . .” If there is to be music I should like it to be the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei from the Byrd Three-Part Mass and the Purcell Funerary Verses, which will, to be sure, have been spoken elsewhere but deserve two hearings if anything in the language does.

And it would be a pleasant and heartfelt gesture to the low church of my boyhood if the congregants sang “Ten Thousand Times Ten Thousand.”

JK

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James Murray Kempton

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I should like my burial service to take place at the Church of St. Ignatius of Antioch and to follow as closely as its rector deems fit the Order of the Burial of the Dead prescribed by the 1559 Book of Common Prayer, which can be found in my bookcase. It is my preference that there be no reference to my name except in its proper place after “for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this N . . .” If there is to be music I should like it to be the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei from the Byrd Three-Part Mass and the Purcell Funerary Verses, which will, to be sure, have been spoken elsewhere but deserve two hearings if anything in the language does.

And it would be a pleasant and heartfelt gesture to the low church of my boyhood if the congregants sang “Ten Thousand Times Ten Thousand.”