A Holy Monsignor

Yesterday, my son and I attended a funeral of a holy man.  He was the retired Monsignor at our parish.  In his 90th year of life, I had seen him shopping at the grocery store just months ago.  He was going strong until the end.  At the funeral, there was a cardinal and four bishops and more priests than my son could even count.  Apparently when planning his funeral, he had joked with his priest friends, "I'm 90 years old- who's going to come to my funeral?  Everyone I know is dead."

Let's just say that the school was closed and parking was at a premium.  The elderly, dignified man had touched so many people there wasn't even room to stand within the church.  Someone had written a book about their life, and Monsignor was actually featured in a chapter.  Part of this was read at his funeral, "the dignified Italian man who was an old-school Catholic and his skinny assistant."  This passage took place in 1972.  Monsignor was still dignified and his skinny assistant was now a bishop.

Even toward the final months of his life, he tried to remember every kid's name who attended the school.  Apparently, even in his final days he schooled a non-Catholic doctor that, "No- those are not worry beads, that is a rosary and this is how you say it..."

Below is what I wrote about him over a year ago....

Monsignor is an 89 year old priest who regularly does daily Mass and is frequent on the weekends too.  As far as I can tell, he does a close to equal amount of pastoral work as the other priests and especially for his age.  He's "retired," but I don't think he knows what that word means.  He was inspired by and an acquaintance of Father Aloysius Schwartz, who is on his way to canonization.  It's not too often you know of someone who knew a potential Saint.  He's also a wonderful priest.  I love going to children's Masses where he presides.  I still remember one where he quizzed the children, "Who is the Bishop? Who is the Pope?  Who was the Pope before that?  All the elementary schoolers eagerly raise their hands and try to get his attention.  Happy with how many elementary schoolers knew the answer, he asked a tough one, "Who was the Pope when I was your age?"  Without losing a beat, one of the elementary schoolers said, "Peter".  Monsignor said "Peter?", and the student said, "The First Pope."  Monsignor laughed as the whole congregation got a little smile that morning.

I had told my husband a little while back that I didn't want to go to Confession with Monsignor, as unfortunately, his hearing is not very good.  I informed my husband, "Even though I'm a repentant sinner, I don't need the whole church to hear my confession."  A couple days later, we found out that Monsignor had a stroke during Mass.  He was rushed to the hospital.  As we talked with others in the Parish, we assumed he would be out of commission for a while to recover.  Even at a younger age, it takes a lot of time to recover.  I also thought, "if that was me, I think I might just say, I'll take a little recover time, read some books and take it easy for a while."  Were we surprised to see him, that next Sunday, just a week later, celebrating Sunday morning Mass.  Wow!  At 89, to recover and just have the willpower to get back to work, we were both amazed.  We are very happy he can share his gifts with us still.  He showed us a true love of God and his vocation.

Rest In Peace,

Monsignor