“Mike sure knows how to draw a crowd. He was an amazing kind of guy and each of us attests to that and we can tell stories, so I’m going to limit my stories, because they’re for us to tell beyond today. We keep him alive in us by telling the story. That’s what the Gospel is about – keeping Christ alive. We continue to tell the story, so much that it becomes a part of us. Christ lives in us and so, too, we do with Mike and all our loved ones.
“I knew Mike since childhood. I grew up in a neighborhood with him. Although he was three years my senior and he didn’t have much to do with me, I sort of admired him from a distance, from afar. Later on, Mike got his first assignment as the associate pastor at Sacred Heart, New Philadelphia. I was the pastor that same year.
“I was a new pastor. I had just come out of rehabilitation for my paralysis and Mike was sent to me. Mike was sent to a very challenging position as a new priest coming in with a new pastor, who was indeed in need of a lot of attention that even I was trying to figure out at the time. We laughed a lot about the fact that he was my senior but I was his pastor.
“Mike was a good listener and it’s what really sealed our ministry. He listened not just to me, but to the parishioners. He listened that he might learn needs and then, being sensitive to those needs, he would respond to them as best he could from where he was.
“Mike was a very ecumenical kind of thinker. He included everyone. He had a sense of ‘Everything’s important’ and accepting them where they are. He knew himself. He didn’t expect perfection, nor did he expect perfection from others. But the process was ‘All are welcome in Mike’s grasp’ and it proved itself very true.
“He enabled us to grow as a team – growing and learning together, so that was sort of my encounter with Mike and probably why I got this job as homilist; that is, he’s getting even with me, I think, for those first three years. First, he invites me to do this thing and then he chokes me up with incense, and if that wasn’t enough, he sets me in front of three bishops (Bishops Earl Fernandes, celebrant for the Mass, and Bishops Emeritus James Griffin and Frederick Campbell, concelebrants). So, Mike, the score is even.
“He would often joke. He said, ‘Eddie, you taught me all I needed to know about being a priest.’ We joked a lot about that.
“I don’t believe death really exists; dying does, death doesn’t. We are continually dying every day, but we’re never dead. Never. We pray in the preface of funerals often that life is changed, not ended. I prefer the term ‘transformation,’ and we are transformed and we are constantly being transformed throughout our lives.
“This is the final transformation – from mortality to immortality, from humanity to divinity, to that glorious new life that was promised.
“A homily is intended to be an application of the Scriptures to daily life. Mike was that application in the flesh. His life was a homily. He lived what he believed. He had a very healthy self-image. He didn’t expect others to be too great or too small. He just took them where they were.
“He had a real sense of humility, and I think that’s what made his living Gospel so believable – his humility. Mike strived to make the Gospel a real part of his life. He championed justice and peace. He did so excitedly, enthusiastically and joyfully. Simply put, Mike truly believed that God loved him always, no matter what, and that’s what made him a man of joy – believing that God loved him. Celebrating the Eucharist was the nourishment of that joy for Mike.
“So here we are, come to celebrate his new life, remembering how his life affected each and every one of us. We gather at the table to once more celebrate the gift of life eternal, take a part of and participate in the promise of new life.
“All of us – Mike has summoned us here to participate in this new life at the altar, where we gather with all the saints and go into that marvelous communion of the saints, so that all of us here and all over gather in the belief that God loves us as we are and is transforming us into glory.
“Wisdom, that Mike picked today (as the first reading), tells us that the just are in the hand of God, tried by fire to be proved worthy of God Himself. Mike was tried by fire. Who hasn’t been tried by fire, isn’t indeed tried by fire? But surviving the fire, we become worthy of God Himself. The words from the Book of Wisdom give us hope.
“Mike was a preacher of great hope because of his joy, and his hope extended throughout his ministry. Mike believed that God was merciful and loving unconditionally. He based his life and his ministry on that belief.
“Thessalonians tells us that we are to be comforted by not grieving as if we have no hope. Grieve, yes. We have a loss here. It was a tough one and he was a good one. But we are not without hope. You and I are gifted with our faith that gives us hope and nurtures us for life’s difficulties, life’s struggles and life’s heartaches. We are a people of hope – a hope the world desperately needs, and we claim it here at the table. Our hope rests in God who loves us.
“Mike chose (for the Gospel reading of the Mass) the story about Jesus’ crucifixion from Luke. He chose it because he believed that this was God’s ultimate extension of His love – that he gave His whole life, His life and His Spirit. You notice Jesus says ‘Into your hands I commend my Spirit. I’ve already given you my life. It’s nailed to this tree. And now, Father, I give you my Spirit.’ What a gift! That’s where we hang our hope, that there on that tree hangs our salvation.
“So Mike doesn’t leave us there, but he moves us into that first day of the week, right after all the gloom and doom and breast-beating of Good Friday and people walking away thinking ‘It’s all over’ and ‘we lost it’ and ‘we’re going to look for another Messiah’ and ‘things just aren’t good for us.’
“On the first day of the week, everything changed. Life changed. Life no longer has an end. Life is eternal. ‘He is risen from the grave!’ That becomes our mantra. ‘Christ lives!’ ‘Jesus is risen from the dead!’ In that lies our hope. We are nourished there, here at this table, and we come together to celebrate that marvelous hope that the empty grave gives us here today with Mike.
“Do not look for Him among the dead. He is risen, as they said!’ He is one with the saints in the kingdom. You and I are following in those steps he has laid out for us and the marvelous joy of hope and joy in each of our livelihoods, no matter their condition. Hope and joy empowers us to go into that world and deliver the Good News through our lives – that Jesus is risen and is the cause and source of our hope and our joy.
“And when people wonder ‘How is it you can be so joyful at a time like this?’ we can point to our faith, we can point to the empty grave, we can point to our ancestors, we can point to people like Father Mike and we can say ‘I believe in the resurrection! I believe I’m part off that; therefore, I have joy.’
“God bless you and strengthen you, Mike. Enjoy your new life. Continue to speak to us and share with us your excitement and your enthusiasm and be kind to them up there. Be gentle with your humor. I’m sure I’ve often thought that people rest in peace, but not with Mike.
“And so I invite you to that same sense that you know we need that humor in our daily journey, and that’s what helped nurture that joy – recognizing the fact, as Mike often did, his laughter would just lighten up the room and change the mood.
“That’s what we have to have. We have to learn to laugh through life because of the joy and the hope we have, and we have to share that in any way we can with the world outside here that’s so depressed and upset and angry, hoping it is that our faith can go out there and bring hope and joy.
“God bless every one of you for knowing Mike, listening to Mike and now carrying Mike in your heart as you do Our Lord Jesus Christ. God bless you.”