Funeral, wake or memorial service: what each one is

Quick answer: A funeral is the service held with the body present, usually within days of the death. A memorial service is held without the body, often weeks or months later. A wake — also called a viewing or visitation — is the gathering beforehand where people come to see the family and pay respects. A family may hold all three, or only one.

What is the difference between a funeral, a wake and a memorial?

The distinction is about the body and the timing, not about how religious the gathering is.

Families combine these freely. A cremation before any service, followed by a memorial months later, is now common; so is a single service that does all the work at once.

How does each tradition handle it?

Catholic. Practice usually runs in three moments: a vigil for the deceased on an evening beforehand, with prayers and often the rosary; the funeral Mass in the church; and the rite of committal at the grave. Guests attend any or all. There is normally communion at the funeral Mass, with the usual practice about who receives — see who can take communion.

Eastern Orthodox. A funeral service in the church, often with an open casket, and memorial prayers repeated on set days after the death and again at the year's end. The repetition is deliberate: the tradition assumes grief continues and gives it a place to return to.

Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian. A funeral service from the church's service book — readings, a homily, prayers, hymns — with a eulogy by a family member either inside or immediately after the service. Committal follows.

Baptist, Pentecostal, non-denominational. Often less fixed in form. A pastor speaks, several family members and friends speak, music is chosen by the family, and the emphasis often falls on the hope of resurrection and on the life of the person who died. Many congregations call this a celebration of life.

Underneath the differences, the readings overlap heavily. Paul's line to the Thessalonians is read almost everywhere:

But we don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you don’t grieve like the rest, who have no hope. (1 Thessalonians 4:13)

Note what the sentence does and does not say. It does not forbid grief; it distinguishes two kinds. Psalm 23 is the other near-universal choice — you can read it at Psalms 23, and the Thessalonians passage at 1 Thessalonians 4.

What do you wear?

Dark and plain is right almost everywhere: a dark suit, a dark dress or skirt, dark trousers with a jacket. Two exceptions worth watching for:

• The family has asked for colour. This is increasingly common at celebrations of life, and the request is genuine — wear what they asked for.
• The tradition has expectations about covering. Orthodox parishes and some others expect shoulders and knees covered, and some expect women to cover their heads; if in doubt, bring a scarf.

Graveside services are outdoors, often on grass, sometimes in bad weather. Shoes and a coat matter more than anything else you decide.

Do you have to view the body?

No, and this is the question guests are most reluctant to ask. At an open-casket wake or viewing, approaching the casket is entirely optional. Plenty of people go to a visitation, greet the family, sit for a while and leave without going forward, and nobody records who did what.

If you do go forward, there is no required behaviour. People stand for a moment, some pray, some touch the casket, some say something quietly. Any of that is normal and so is standing there for five seconds and stepping away.

If you are bringing a child, decide beforehand whether they will go forward and tell them what they will see. Children generally handle it better when it has been described in advance than when it arrives as a surprise.

What do you say to the family?

Short is better than eloquent. "I am so sorry." "I loved him." "I don't know what to say." All of these work, and the last one is honest and welcome.

What consistently lands badly is explanation — any sentence beginning with "at least", or an attempt to say why this happened. The people who are remembered kindly afterwards are the ones who said little and stayed.

If you are writing rather than speaking, name the person and say one specific thing you remember about them. A concrete memory is worth more than any general sentiment, and families keep those notes.

What do you bring?

To a wake or visitation: nothing, or a card. Flowers are traditional in many places, though some traditions and some families prefer donations to a named cause, and Orthodox and Jewish practice around flowers differs from Catholic and Protestant custom. The notice will usually say.

To a funeral: yourself. Food afterwards is a real and useful gift if you are close to the family, and best offered for the week after, when the visitors have gone and the meals stop arriving.

What happens at the graveside?

The committal is short — often under fifteen minutes — and it is the part guests most often have no picture of beforehand.

The pattern is stable across traditions: everyone gathers at the grave or at the crematorium, a passage is read, a prayer of committal is said as the coffin is lowered or the curtain closes, and there is often a symbolic gesture. Earth thrown onto the coffin is the most widespread; flowers dropped in is common in others.

Two practical notes. It is outdoors, on grass, sometimes in bad weather — dress for the ground rather than the room. And many families keep the committal to a small group and hold the larger gathering afterwards; if you were invited to the service but not the graveside, that is a normal arrangement and not an omission.

What about the days afterwards?

Several traditions mark them formally. Orthodox practice returns to prayer on set days after the death and at the anniversary. Many Catholic families ask for a Mass on a set day and again a year later. Protestant practice is generally less fixed, though anniversaries are widely observed.

The reason those customs survive is practical as much as theological: attention concentrates in the first week and then disappears, and a marked date brings people back. If you want to help someone bereaved, the most useful thing you can do is put a date in your calendar three months out and call them then.

If you are looking for something to read or send, the passages most often chosen are Psalm 23, John 11 and 1 Thessalonians 4 — you can read them at Psalms 23, John 11 and 1 Thessalonians 4. A short line from one of them, written by hand under a specific memory, is worth more than any card verse.

Scripture quoted from the World English Bible (public domain). This article describes what different Christian traditions practice; it does not recommend one over another.