About a dozen years ago, we attended a funeral service in the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church on Pittsburgh’s Polish Hill. The Church, also known as the Polish Cathedral, is a magnificent setting for a day like that one. Grand in scale and baroque in style, it was filled to its central dome with the sunken emotion of a life not fully lived.

The deceased was a young man who had died in a tragic accident. We had known him since tee ball days when he and our son were teammates. And they remained teammates for more than a decade thereafter. Our grief was paralyzing, and we were not alone.

On that unspeakably sad day, the Catholic funeral mass left an indelible impression. Although I’m neither Polish nor Catholic, I found a powerful harmony between the service and the church in which it was p

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