Family men, in turns, carried the bier in procession from the ashram to the waiting van for the 20-mile drive to the crematorium in the town.
But if he thought the gloss had been taken off his status as a global celebrity he might have been gratified to learn that after his death the procession that followed his funeral bier was more than half a mile long.
He lay on a bier under a simple crucifix with his bishop's staff under his arm.
And I'd have wanted to join the long queue of people waiting to file past the bier at Westminster.
My beloved Elisabeta lay on the same bier where she had wept for me only four nights prior.
But this time it is a disaster for the travelers, who are carrying a dead man on a bier to his tomb in his homeland.
The closest this sublime chimera ever came to being realized was during the days when his body lay on its bier .
She knelt before the bier and bent her head down.
It would be conducted around a bier of wreaths and a serviceman's hat, with a firing party with heads bowed and a chaplain to read the words from the military burial service.
Four silent soldiers with bowed heads stood at each corner of the bier .
