Mass of Christian Burial for
Margo Anne Schorno

By Father Brian Joyce

There's something very familiar about that passage. Doesn't that woman, Martha, sound familiar? (This refers back to the Gospel story of Martha approaching Jesus when Lazarus had died.) She's intensely faithful and loyal to Jesus. But she's determined. She's stubborn. She's not afraid to be critical, and when it's on someone else's behalf, she's fearless. Sounds familiar. As long as it wasn't about herself and about her health, Margo had no hesitation to speak up. I remember in the early 1970's Bishop Begin called a meeting of the priests of the diocese, department heads and a few others (Margo was one of the "a few others.") to have a diologue about how Confirmation might be done in the parishes. The dialogue was largely limited to listening to Bishop Begin express his thoughts on the subject, until Margo stood up and said, "You know, it's not enough for you just to come and confirm young people. You have to come and spend some quality time and pastoral time with the parish and get to know everyone before you celebrate the sacrament." The Bishop thought he had closed the discussion by saying, "I have so many other commitments. How could I possibly ever do that?" Margo immediately began to list how he could reorganize his calendar and how he could make better use of his department heads and how he could reassign his staff. She was up to her sixth point when the bishop rumbled through his teeth, "It was just a rhetorical question."

The Hebrew scripture that we listened to asked the question what really constitutes a good full life. And the answer it gives is not the number of years, but the way we live. Margo lived with strong values and a clear vision. There were things very critical and important for her. Important for her was the Church as people and the Church as a community. She was really concerned that we always be connected. She had a passion because of that for small church community. Remember she always insisted we have name tags whenever we had large gatherings. No matter how big the parish got, she wanted to say, "No strangers here." It was important for her that everyone feel welcome and included and that every person be treated with justice and with respect. And it was really important for her that people's gifts be recognized and used. She didn't care about role or position or ordination or non-ordination or reputation. She wanted everyone's gift to be surfaced, to be respected, to be enabled and to be enjoyed.

Just a few months ago, there was a meeting of people in lay ministry throughout the diocese, and Margo went to that and spoke briefly once or twice. And our Bishop John Cummins commented to me later his description of the meeting and he described Margo as "courageous and never calling attention to herself." I'm sure she would have appreciated that description. There were so many things she could do very well, high-profile, public things, and she always simply refused to do them if she could ever find anyone else to prepare and let them do the job. The fifth century Chinese Philosopher Lao-Tsze gives a description of leadership. And he says when the leader's job is done and her task is accomplished, of her the people will say, "We did it ourselves."

She was the glue, the planner, the connector, the catalyst, the resource for us. And she will be for a long time to come. Seven days before she died she came to work, she gathered our liturgy coordinating committee and helped us to plan up to New Year's Day. Six days before she died she came and planned our children's liturgies for our three family Masses on Christmas Eve. And well before that, with our Music Coordinator, she had worked out in detail all our music for every liturgy from now 'til January 9th. That's short term. Long term, she's the one who brought the Taize Brothers to our community from France and began our monthly Taize gatherings in Pleasant Hill. She started our Bereavement Ministry, which continues, our patterns of music and of worship, our children's liturgies, our environment ministry, our hospitality committee, our pre-Baptism ministry, LifeWorks for young couples and much more. And it will all continue. Margo lived with clear vision and strong values and worked at them.

She was also very creative and she was a lot of fun. I remember she got Brendan Murphy and Mark Coleli and myself to join her in singing "Mac the Knife" with a lot of silly gestures. And with Monica Sepansky and Sister Maureen and Roger Lucy, she dressed us up to do Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock." And with her musicians from the 8 o'clock choir on Sunday morning she, in full costume, did "Sister Act." She brought to our children Polar Express and The Rainbow Fish and Butterfly Kisses and What Color is the Wind, Daddy? We have Halloween liturgies in full costume. And, at one of them a couple of years ago, we were in the gym and I guess we had somewhere around 400 youngsters, when a serious fight broke out between Obe Wan Kenobe and Darth Vedar with their laser swords. In just a few moments, Margo had choreographed the entire group into liturgical gestures and movements. And everyone joined in, not a fight, but in worship. One of our Halloween Masses, an evening one, got out of the gym and was through well before the adults were through in Church. So Margo organized a Halloween Parade. She marched all the youngsters around our lawn into a Halloween Parade, celebrating and singing. The problem was the Mass in Church went on and on and on. The third time around the property, a little kid looks up at her and says, "This isn't a parade. We're just walking around in circles."

Speaking of a parade, she organized for our decoration of our Church at Christmas and Easter, huge afternoon parties, 50 -100 parishoners, music and snacks and a lot of hard work. One of the worries she always had was, from the back we'd bring out the figures for the Christmas crib, and people would always grab 2 or 3, banging them together and we'd have them chips all over the place. She developed a Christmas Crib procession, where everyone got to hold one of the figures, a sheep or maybe the Baby Jesus and we sang "O Come All Ye Faithful" and, one by
one, marched down and placed them in place, solving the problem, having a lot of fun along the way.

I remember a couple of years ago she had everyone from the Staff to the Altar Society doing the 12 Days of Christmas, complete with gestures. Pipers piping, swans swimming, ladies dancing, all of us jumping all over the house. And just 3 weeks ago, she wanted to thank the Hospitality Ministry and Committee, took them out to dinner. Local dinner wouldn't do. We went to Buca de Pepo, and not just anyplace in Buca de Pepo, we had to have the Pope's Room, surrounded by pictures and models of the Pope. She lived with strong values and clear vision. She
was creative and she was fun.

She was also quietly courageous. She didn't let others in when it came to her health. She was convinced that if you just let her be and let her gather energy and gather her strength, she could deal with it and she could keep going. When she was diagnosed with leukemia, they gave her 8 years to live. And for 17, she proved them wrong. She didn't like to be asked about her health. And she didn't really much appreciate being given sympathy or being told to slow down. I made that mistake once and she said to me, "I have leukemia. Leukemia doesn't have me."

And finally I'd say about her, "She was very very happy." She was in love with the parish community of Christ the King, and she was in love with her ministry. About 3 months ago, a man whom I didn't know came to visit her. She had helped him out with either a marital or personal problem 29 years ago when she was associate at St. Pascal's in Oakland. And he had never forgotten and he came to thank her once again. She told me about it that afternoon, and then she smiled and she said, "Isn't parish ministry wonderful? Why would I ever want to do anything else?" And, the last week, when she was really near death, one thing she insisted on was wearing one of our bright red festival shirts that read, "What a Wonderful World!"

Margo, we will not forget you. And with you and with St. Paul, we believe and are convinced that neither death nor life, neither things present nor things to come can ever really separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. One of our musicians crafted a poem. It's short. It's direct. It's simply titled: "For Margo."

Small One, Fierce Purpose
Small Feet, God's Dance
Small Spark, Big Fire
Celebrate a life well-lived.

Amen.