Homily of November 7, 1999
Father Brian Joyce

Six years ago when Monsignor celebrated his 60th Anniversary as a priest, we gave him a plaque from the parish that had the biblical words on it: "Strong, Loving and Wise." And he took that home to Ireland where they treasure it today.

Many stories about Monsignor being strong, loving, and wise.... Two footnotes I want to add before we share with you the tributes that were shared at his funeral on Friday. One was, besides strong, loving and wise, he was fun. He was fun to be with, fun to live with, always pulling jokes on people, putting on hats and wigs and costumes and trying out anything new he found from an exercise bicycle to a giant chair at the festival.

I was here about three months when the feast of St. Jerome came along. Now St. Jerome is probably one of the meanest-spirited saints the Church has in its history. And everybody knows that. And about 100 years after he was canonized, there was a pope walking down the hall in the Vatican, and he saw a painting of Jerome, out in the desert with a huge rock in his hand, pounding himself to do penance. And the Pope looked up and he said, "Jerome, thank God for that rock. That's the only thing that got you into heaven." And I told that story at morning Mass, with Monsignor concelebrating with me. So, when I got over to the house and sat down to breakfast, what was in my place but a huge rock! He was strong, loving and wise, and he was fun.

And he also was very pastorally realistic, down to earth. That really touched everything he did with people. For example, you know how many priests say, when people show up at Christmas and Easter, "Where are they the rest of the year? Why aren't they here the rest of the year?" Three years ago, we had huge crowds at Christmas... Midnight Mass....We had 9 services....The morning after Christmas, he sits down with me at breakfast and he says, "Boy! There were a lot of people at Church. How many people do you think there were?" And I said, "I don't know." He said, "Let's figure it out! He pulled out a napkin and a pencil and he started estimating each Mass. And we figured there were somewhere between 9 and 10 thousand people at Mass. He said, "Nine thousand people! Wow! Isn't it great they don't come every week?" He said, "What would we do? What would we do?"