My Aunt Margo, first thing she would probably want us all to do is to just look around, which it's certainly a sight to see with everyone in the room here. For you who don't know, Margo and the family grew up in Oakland, as Brian pointed out, her oldest brother Ernie, my father Walt, the youngest of the brothers, Karl, and she was the youngest in the family. Part of my biggest memories with Margo is really the extended family. It's a pretty special thing seeing all these faces in the room and seeing all the different memories and hearing all the different memories that people have of Margo. Just wanted to spend a few minutes and share some of my most fond memories and some of the qualities that I really saw in Margo.

The first one is Margo's strength, and, as I've talked to people over the last few days, Margo's strength came in a lot of different ways. I heard "stubbornness" today from someone. I've heard her struggles over 20 years and I think the highs and lows and the successes and accomplishments throughout that period of her illness. One of my memories comes as, a little bit smaller than I am today, but my aunt used to always wrestle with me. And, realizing that she had three older brothers, I maybe learned where she got that from. But, she was always stronger and I remember this powerful aunt. Once I got into high school, I started to develop a little bit of a complex that I was getting beat up by a nun at the time. So that's my memory of the strength of Margo.

Margo was very selfless. She really never drew attention to herself. And I don't think that that was because she didn't know of the accomplishments of herself and the parish, everyone in the room, everyone she touched. I don't think that she was uncomfortable with that. But I think that she purposely deflected the attention in an effort to really get everyone involved. And we'd see that on a daily basis. When the family would get together, she'd say, "I traveled to Europe. I went to Greece with the group," never really talking about her accomplishments, always talking about the accomplishments of the groups and the things that the groups accomplished. I think that's a real tribute to her and I think it's a real inspiration that she's left with us.

And then the last great quality that I would like to talk about is Margo's effectiveness. She was incredibly effective. She had a master's in theology. She had a PhD in ministry. She did incredible things throughout her life. And again, I'd say "Look around," because I think the greatest thing she accomplished was building this huge family that's here today. Wanting to share an experience my wife and I had a few weeks ago now. We came out before and after the 9:15 Mass and spent quite a bit of time with Margo. And we were sitting right over here. And before Mass she talked about her illness a little bit. She talked about her education. She talked about the family. She talked about the things that were going on in the parish. It was a very special time. But, she was talking about things that were going in the parish. She talked about the LifeWorks groups. She talked about the kids with the upcoming Halloween events, and it was very clear that she was touching many people. There was a great diversity in the people she was touching. And that was very special. The family had an opportunity today to read some of the letters that the children had written. It was clear that she touched the children, she was very important to the children and that the story she presented was very well received.

Once Mass started, my wife Jamie and I were sitting over here. And I did what I am doing right now. I looked out at the group, the congregation, and just was amazed at the families, at the youth, at the energy, at the age, just how everyone in the congregation was very much part of a large family, part of Margo's family. I was very proud to think that my aunt had had such a great impact on this huge family. I'll always remember that.

And then, the final thought I'd like to leave with everyone is the other thing that I've heard over the last few days is the word "gift". I think that Margo had a tremendous gift. I think she shared that gift with everyone. She was incredibly gifted. But I think that her greatest quality was her ability to absolutely share her gift. And the gift was very unique and personal. As I see people come up this evening, I just would love to hear all the stories of sharing that Margo did with people, interaction that people had and the gifts that Margo gave to each and every one of us. And I believe that that's probably a very personal and very unique gift.

So, with that, the thing that I'll take away and make sure that I take a gift from Margo, and that gift is just a simple lesson. And the lesson is that if you pour your absolute heart into something which I think we've all seen her do, and I've certainly seen it, if you pour your heart into something, while you shouldn't expect it, you'll absolutely receive a tremendous amount back from that effort. And I'll

absolutely take that gift, that lesson, with me forever. We'll miss you.

To speak about Margo, ever since this privilege came to me I've been very nervous. Those who knew Margo learned very quickly that doing it right just wasn't enough. Margo believed that you needed to do things both right and well. And I have this crazy feeling if I don't do this well, I'm going to hear from her. The second pressure point was that Brian asked me to keep it to 3 minutes or less. If you'd known Margo for only a month, you would be hard pressed to summarize that experience in 3 minutes. Having known Margo for over 20 years, I'm going to have to leave a lot unsaid about a very very extraordinary friend.

I'd like to spend my few minutes honoring a committed life, a life committed to ministry, a committment to building Christian community, a life's work. I'll tell you true I've never known anyone who could organize, motivate, train and get people active into ministry like Margo. I used to always get a laugh or smile from Margo whenever I confronted her about being a hooker. But I observed her practice that ancient craft too many times to ignore it now. The encounter normally began by Margo asking a simple question of someone, "I wonder if you

might do me a favor." - the hook! My guess is that a large percentage of the people in this church tonight are active in parish life or ministry because they agreed in doing Margo a favor. She was a hooker, all right, a darned good hooker!

A eulogy in today's newspaper referred to Margo as the glue holding a growing parish community together. The person that made that comment knew her well. I watched her build and serve two parishes, first, St. Perpetua's in Lafayette and then here. In that regard, Margo was truly a pioneer. She was one of the first of a cadre of women to dedicate themselves to parish ministry and service. And that wasn't always smooth or painless. Margo shared with these other early pioneers the indifference and lack of support from what was then, and is sometimes still, and all-male and authoritarian institution. Well, Margo was all-woman and not at all authoritarian. She just soldiered on, quietly, tirelessly, and effectively! She worked in the background, avoiding bringing attention to herself, with a girlish sense of humor, deep compassion, and a joyous attitude. While Margo was a feminist, she had no burning desire to be ordained or be named a pastor. Although, in case you hadn't noticed, she did a pretty good job co-pastoring this parish. She did, however, have a burning desire that those gifted by God with skills and charisms be utilized by the church in ministry. She was a pragmatic pioneer.

With regard to her work, I'd like to quote Tina Turner. Margo, you were simply the best, better than all the rest, better than anyone, anyone I've ever met, simply the best. So, I'll not mourn a life departed, but I will celebrate a life lived, a committed life, lived right and well. Thank you, Margo, for being my friend, and thank you for your gentle care of souls. God speed. Put in a good word, for all

of us.

As Dean said, Margo would have enjoyed, and is enjoying, looking out at all of you and knowing that she is the glue that does gather us together. I have the Adrian Dominican piece, and people spoke of Margo's committed life. And she certainly lived a committed life as a part of the Adrians, and when she chose to change and shift that relationship it did not change her committment, or the love and care and friendship that remained with the Adrian Dominican sisters.

First time I met Margo was when we used to have summer school at Bishop O'Dowd High School, and they sent people out from Michigan to teach us. And her mom and dad had come up to the convent for a party, or to visit Margo. It was early on, and I think it was her mother who wasn't too happy with Margo's choice of entering the convent. I remember Annie Russell and a couple of us giving a birthday party or something to try to kind of ease and win favor so that that would ease that relationship.

Margo taught school before she got into parish ministry in Adrian, Michigan, at our Motherhouse, because she gave her old bones to God. She entered after two years of college. The rest of us entered after two weeks of high school. One of the stories from her years that she taught, in Adrian, she taught in Bixby, Arizona, and she taught in Delano at the time of the United Farm Workers, when the union was just organizing, and she had the First Communion Class. And someone had not turned in her Baptismal Certificate. It was Dolores Huerta's daughter. And the superior of the house sent Margo who was like, had been in the community all of like maybe two years or three years, out to United Farm Workers camp to tell Dolores Huerta that, if she didn't get in her certificate, that her daughter was not going to make her First Communion. Well, Margo handled that with all the tact that Margo handled many a thing in her life. And it was resolved. The certificate

never came, but we got a letter of verification and the child did make her First Communion without this becoming a major Union issue. Margo was able to work through that.

Many people lived with Margo at St. Pascal's and, to give you a sense of her playfulness and her mischieviousness, one of the stories that I'd like to share with you was, one night she had cooked. At the end of the meal, she went to each person at the table and said, "Would you like some cherry pie?.....Would you like some cherry pie?...." Oh, yeah....everybody. She had everybody worked up. And she said, "So would I, but you know, we've got this left-over watermelon." The other thing she used to do in community, and, again, she would gather people like she's gathered you all. And it was a great treat at certain times in our life in community to stay up late and watch a movie. So she'd get everybody worked up about this great movie that was going to be on at 10 o'clock, and everybody changed into their pajamas and whatever, and gonna watch the movie. And she got them worked up and they'd get hooked on the movie, and they'd turn around and Margo had either fallen asleep or had gone off to bed because she was too tired to watch the movie.

Sometimes she would call herself mischievous, and those of us who were with her would say, "Oh! Oh! Here comes trouble." For my birthday, one of my major birthdays, and I won't give a number, she took me to North Beach to Evolution of the Blues. Now, many of you know the North Beach area has some rather risque places. And, knowing Margo, as we were leaving the theatre, I said to her, "I have the car keys. I am walking straight down these four blocks to our car and, if you disappear, I'm going home without you." She was good for a half a block, and all of a sudden, she wasn't there anymore cause she wanted to see what it was that was going on. I kept walking and, about 2 blocks later, this person's running up behind me, and it was Margo catching up with me cause she knew I meant I was going to go home without her. She called that mischief, and sometimes some of us would say, "Whew! We passed through another one again."

A very generous person, a person who truly cared for others. She truly cared, especially for many of the older sisters that she lived with, Helen Grace Vogel at Pascal's and Mary Coleman Walsh, whom we called Peg. She did many special endearing things for the women that she lived with in community, especially her elders. She often would gather people for progressive dinners, friends, or on holidays. She made sure everybody had some place to go even if it meant she created some kind of a party, so that people would not be alone.

In her personal life, Margo was a very private person. She truly gave almost the all of herself to her ministry. I lived with Margo for eight years, and I knew that when Margo and I didn't live together anymore, I wouldn't see much of her because the whole of herself went to her ministry. And so to be a friend of Margo's, and the family and I were talking about this, was to learn to love Margo the way she would allow you to, and not always the way you wanted it to happen. And, yet, when she was with you, she was with you 1000%. It was as if there was no one else in the world except you. And then it might be six months before you see her again, and, yet, that was how she lived her life, and it was certainly the way she chose to die also. There are many of us that would have liked to have been around more, and yet that was part of Margo's privacy. And to love her was to allow her to live and to die the way she needed to do that. And, yet, in Margo's ministry life, she was a very outgoing person. And she truly was the glue. One other thing I wanted to mention about the privacy part. Margo was diagnosed with leukemia in 1982, and it was many many years before anybody even knew that she was ill. And I remember her going to her first chemo treatment because we lived

together. And she did it her way. She went alone. And I remember coming back that night and how very sick she was. But I also think in that moment she decided she was going to prove to the doctors who gave her six to eight years that they did not know Margo Schorno. And it's 17 years later, far longer than they gave her to live, because she made up her mind....stubborn....very stubborn.

When Margo first came back to the diocese (Margo and Brian and I went to school together and got our Master's in Theology in '69 - '70.) and she came back to the Oakland Diocese to make her committment to transform the diocese. And I believe that your presence here shows that she did do that, a person at a time. And she used to take great delight in the fact that no one knew what to do with us, we women, pastoral ministers in 1970 - 71, especially when we went to the clergy education days or showed up for a preaching workshop, and the clergy would look at us like, "Oh. What are you here for?" "Well, the same thing you're here for. We're pastoral associates." It would give her absolutely and great delight. Jeff Asable, who's a priest in our diocese, said Mass at our parish this morning and knew I was coming here tonight. And he was 6 or 7 years old when Margo was at St. Pascal's, and that was a time when we were experimenting, and children were making their First Communions with their families in their homes. And Jeff remembers that Margo and Jim Erickson, who's also here, had helped prepare him and his sister and they were making their First Communion at a home Mass, at

which, in the front of the living room, was a table of Eucharist and the Mass and in the back of the living room, the bar was set up. And he said Margo enjoyed both parts of that liturgy.

I think Margo ministered in ways that opened ministry to everyone. She would come into a parish and she would maybe use her name Sister to get things started. And then she'd say, "Well, you know, I'm not ordained. You can do this. Do me a favor." She was a coach. She was a cheerleader. She had that kind of invisible leadership that this whole successful event would have gone on and you would have never seen her, because she was the background person saying, "You can do it. Here's a way. Here's a method." And she did that with her whole life. And then when she got something started, and people took over, then she'd find something else to do. Or another parish to do it in, but constantly building up the Church. Margo felt that if she was in a parish for 2 or 3 years and she was still doing the same thing when she had started, she was not successful because she had not given it to someone else so she could come and get something more interesting and new and get that created and carried on.

So, Margo did give her life to the Church, and she spent herself for the Church, and you and I, the Church of God, celebrate that gift, honor her tonight because we're so much the better because our lives have walked together...... I'm going to tell Margo I miss her because I talk to her every day.

I sent this letter to Margo a few days before she died. It's not only from me but from the youth of the parish.

Dear Margo,

I just wanted to thank you so very much for being such a wonderful inspiration in my life. Every Sunday morning, for as long as I can remember, you were at church, sliding into the pew and greeting me and my brother with a smile. You are one of the few who I know worked very hard to help out the youth, especially teenagers, of Christ the King. I remember when you even came to youth group once and played "Shuffle Your Buns," even though that game made it a little harder to sit down the next day.

Now that I am experiencing a journey through high school, I know that I still can count on love and support from people like you at Christ the King. We have already just begun a new group to help teenagers through rough times. It's called "Teens Speak Out" and I hope it will do very well. I know that you are preparing for a different kind of journey. But your amazing energy and talent will keep on inspiring me. I love you very much and I hope that you are at peace.

Love Always