2^nd Sunday of Easter  2026   Thomas

In our human ways of imagining I sometimes forget that Jesus’ resurrection is inevitable because the person of Jesus with a human nature is intimately one with God the Father and the Spirit.  At no time did the Father have any other plan for Jesus with his human nature, body and soul, except his return to being one with God in that unimaginable realm where God lives.             

 

And this risen Jesus also, as he promised, sent the Spirit to the men and women who had followed him.  As clear as it was that Jesus died, Jesus is alive.   That conviction came even to St. Paul who had persecuted the early Christians and who had never even met Jesus.  Paul, himself, tells of a personal experience with Jesus.  We have in Paul’s very own writings in First Corinthians his own first person testimonies that he has seen the risen Lord.    I quote: “Did I not see Jesus the Lord?”  And elsewhere after speaking of the risen Lord’s appearance to the disciples he writes: “in the end he appeared even to me.”  That experience convinced him that Jesus lived.  The power of his encounter with the risen Lord is evident in his stunning transformation from a persecutor of Christians to an apostle.  

 

All the other early Christian reports of experiences of the risen Jesus are written by third parties in the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).   These third parties are members of a community of believers in Jesus’ resurrection.  And oddly none of these third parties explicitly testifies to their own personal experience of the Risen Lord in the way that Paul testifies about his, however brief his testimony.    At least Matthew of the four gospel writers must have seen the risen Lord.  He writes about himself in that gospel but oddly not a single word about his personal experience of the risen Lord.  

 

Certainly all the third party accounts of the risen Lord are genuine expressions of the faith and hope of the witnesses of the resurrection and their communities.  But I so wish we had some other first person versions of a vision of the risen Lord similar to Paul’s. Take Peter, for example.     There is some doubt that the apostle Peter is the writer of the Second Epistle of Peter.   But if he is, he in this Epistle describes himself as a personal witness of the Transfiguration.    But he writes not a single personal word about his experience as a witness of Jesus’ resurrection.  How instructive in his Epistle would be Peter’s first person account, of what he himself saw, for example, when Jesus made that second appearance to the disciples and there responded to welcome Thomas.    

 

And how instructive would be Thomas’ own first person report about his encounter with the Risen Christ.    I would like to hear Thomas tell it.  He might have answered my questions!   Why, Thomas, did you raise the stakes so high?    “I won’t believe,” the third person account so reads, “unless I can put my hand into the wound in his side.”  Yes, I would like him to answer my questions.   What kind of sorrow moved you to make this extreme demand about the wound?    Why did you doubt your own friends’ testimony?  Were you angry because Jesus appeared to them and not to you?   But did you not expect that Jesus might appear again?   Is that why you returned to the group?  And then after Jesus encouraged you to touch him, were you afraid?    I wish that we had some personal supplements to the testimony in the four gospels.   How about, for example, Thomas giving us a Ted Talk?

 

As the whole story is recorded, however, by John, surely, the story clearly records the faith of Thomas and of John and of the whole early community.  They came to understand that God’s exaltation of Jesus in some way restored an integral physical presence after the suffering and humiliating death on the cross.  His wounds on his resurrected body become the sign of that consolation.  His wounds become badges of honor.  His wounds encourage all of us who suffer in our humanity. We imagine this and remember the words that Jesus had spoken during his life:  Blessed are those who mourn…blessed are those who suffer persecution…Blessed are the merciful…        

 

But let me address my disappointment that we have no first person accounts, not from Peter, not from Thomas, not from Matthew.  And, excuse me, not from John, either.  There is more doubt than certitude that the writer of John’s gospel is the same person who is described in that gospel as entering the empty tomb with Peter and as seeing and believing.   Is this John the evangelist?          

And not from Mary Magdalen.   In John’s gospel we have a third person account of her in the cemetery garden thinking Jesus was the gardener.  And an account of the two guys on the road to Emmaus.   They like Mary seem to be quoted exactly.   But they and she and the other women do not record their own experience of the risen Lord.

 

But let’s be clear:  the principal appearances of Jesus are with groups of his disciples where they recognize him.   They hear then about his personal love for them and his instructions for the future.

 

And I think that is the point.    We are not being called simply to follow Mary Magdalen or the women, or Thomas, or Peter or John or the men on the way to Emmaus.   We are called today by the risen Jesus to membership in the community of men and women disciples to whom he returned in resurrection.  Jesus commissions them together to preach the mystery of his enduring love shown in his risen self.  The community’s faith in Jesus transcends the faith of all others.

 

So yes, admire those individuals to whom Jesus appeared.   The gospels call us to believe them, yes, but calls us more so to faith in the  community.   The New Testament is the story of the first Christian community of believers called by Jesus Christ and he calls us now to be one with them.   Jesus saves us in a community.             

And, of course, Paul had to give first person testimony. He himself had to write “I have seen the Lord.”  He was not like the members of that first community whose testimony was credible in the third person.

 

      At the Holy Thursday liturgy I attended there were only two men.   The congregation was

 made up of religious sisters from a variety of 

communities.   Some of the women refused the footwashing but the priest

was kept busy!

Holy Thursday   April 2026

We have very limited knowledge of the kingdom of God to come.  We have an image of that kingdom taken perhaps from imaginative pictures of Eden before the fall of Adam and Eve.   Or we craft an image taken from our favorite experiences.  But Jesus provides us with his leading image of heaven.   He frequently mentions in the gospels, the image of wedding feasts and other meals of celebration.   And this evening we commemorate how Jesus put his own stamp on feasts by the way he acts at the Passover meal that celebrates freedom, a memorial of the Exodus of the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt.    

 

Adopting Jesus’ image of the meal in general as the experience of heaven might lead us to imagine ourselves sitting in heavenly luxury at an elaborately set table surrounded by our favorite foods and wines and our best friends and family.   And a gospel story or two surely does confirm that God reserves some such places in the heavenly kingdom.   But it is clear that such places are especially for the poor, like Lazarus and for others who are poor and hungry.  Moreover, Jesus takes a variety of actions in such settings.   Sometimes they are celebrations of reconciliation or of healing.  But today, of course, he provides us with a striking model for our participation in such meals, the model of the servant.  

 

In this evening’s ideal setting for a heavenly banquet, Jesus, as he celebrates Passover, provides us with the image of how he himself will always behave.   It is so humbling to watch him.  He takes the role of a trusted household servant and bathes the feet of his friends, that is, of course, our feet.   This action appears at a moment in time but it is a gesture that informs all of human existence.  It is the gesture that defines for Jesus his love for us and the deepest desire of the Trinity in God to be of service to us.  It is, also, the gesture that defines how we ourselves are to live.

 

So in our own images of God’s banquet in God’s new kingdom, we must consider the whole picture.   It appears that Jesus encourages us at banquets rather to wait on table or prepare the meal in the kitchen or be the rancher presenting the choicest meat or the farmer the choicest fruits or vegetables.   Images of waiting on table or remote and immediate preparation of the meal can take the place of the usual ones we make up for ourselves in the next life: prideful head-of-the-table images or maybe lead singer in the heavenly choir.  But what a pleasure it will be to take some of these service duties at the heavenly banquet  without the danger of running out of joy and energy and with perfection of service and of food and drink always within reach.

 

I had an experience that gives us a pale image of such transformation in roles that Jesus suggests. Years ago I officiated at the wedding of a black couple, a lovely couple, the bride an elementary school teacher and the groom a bank official.   After the wedding at the Gesu Church in North Philly, I was among those invited to the reception at a suburban country club. 

 

At the reception I could not find another guest who was white and, surprisingly, I could not find a person on the service staff at the club who was not white.   Like all wedding banquets it was an expensive transaction.   And, in fact, it symbolized our segregated society in a striking way.    The venue hired only whites.    And at the same time whites were denied by the overall culture from coming to know the lovely couple and their families.    The role reversals at that country club represented no ideal at all.   But I am convinced that those in heaven will experience transformational joy whether sometimes seated at table or sometimes preparing and serving the meal.

.

The Raising of Lazarus  by Tintoretto   

 Frances Maguire Museum of Art  at St. Joseph's Univeristy, Philadelphia

 (on loan from USEast Province of Jesuits)

5^th Sun of Lent   The Raising of Lazarus    SJU  2026

         The main event in today’s readings, of course, is the call of Jesus in raising Lazarus from the dead.  “Lazarus, come out.” Any of our own experiences of coming to our senses or waking up to a new day pale in comparison with that of the experience of Lazarus restored to life after four days dead in his tomb.   I think of a time when I had a very bad concussion and lost consciousness for much of a day before I became conscious suddenly with two friends standing at the edge of my hospital bed.   And we think, too, of every morning pulling our bodies out of bed, some of them stiffened by old age.    No real comparisons here except for one.     We can hear the voice of Jesus calling us in situations like these two just as the dead Lazarus is called by Jesus:  “Come out” “Wake up!”  “Get up!”  Without that voice I might still be in bed this morning.

First the story of Lazarus again and then some talk of the human body:

          Jesus arrives days late on the scene after his friend Lazarus is buried.  Lazarus’s sisters greet him.  First Martha sadly wishes that Jesus could have been there to save her brother from death.  But together they agree that Lazarus will rise again on the last day.   This was, of course, a common belief for the Jews that on the last day the bodies of faithful Jews will rise again from their burial places.  Jesus takes this opportunity to proclaim that he himself is the resurrection indicating that his own risen body will be the confirmation of this Jewish belief.   

       Then, arriving on the scene the other sorrowing sister, Mary, comes to greet Jesus.  She repeats what Martha already said, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.”    The sisters had discussed this and the mention of it becomes an admonition of Jesus contributing to the sisters’ tears.

       But Jesus has a plan to respond to these two women directly and he asks, “Where have you laid him?”    And they lead Jesus to the gravesite, the three of them in tears with those around noting how Jesus loved Lazarus.  The burial place is a cave like tomb with a stone placed against the entrance.  When Jesus gets close by, he says, “Take away the stone.”  The practical Martha is quite disturbed by this and speaks up as if Jesus does not understand that the grave was closed now four days ago.   She patiently says, “Sir, there will be a stench”.    As much as to say:  Let Lazarus be.  He has been buried far too long.   And for Martha these days have been painful enough.   For her another viewing will only deepen the pain.  Her words underline for the late-coming Jesus and his followers that they must trust Mary and herself that truly Lazarus has been dead for days.   There is nothing else to be said or done.    Nothing else: Except what Jesus says:  “Did I not tell you that if you have faith you will see the glory of God?”   The stone is removed.

       Jesus quietly raises his eyes to heaven to thank his Father for hearing him knowing that his action will help those gathered to understand that Jesus has been sent by him.   Then he cries out in a loud voice: “Lazarus, come out.”  Lazarus comes out wrapped in his burial clothes and Jesus directs that he be untied.   The astonishment and the hugs and tears don’t need to be expressed in the gospel text.

       The body of Lazarus rising from the tomb becomes later in the Easter resurrection of Jesus another full confirmation of the divine source of the body and its destiny.

       The pre-Christian Judaic focus on the human body starts in the accounts of the beginning with the creation of the first humans.    In Genesis we learn about the care that God takes with the creation of the human body divinely proclaimed as good. 

         Our own understanding of the long process of evolution that results in our bodily creation only adds to our amazement.    We are in our bodies intricately related to the beauty of all life in our created world.  This relationship leads us to engage in sustenance and enhancement of life.

         But In Christanity we learn of more creative excitement. God in the Second Person of the Trinity comes among us as a human being in Jesus.    From the time of Jesus’ birth God can say what we each say from our beginnings: “I am not not my body.”   That is, God says, “divine though I am, my definition now in Jesus Christ includes permanently a human body.”   

         We take up the same phrase that God uses about the divine self in Christ Jesus: that is, whatever I am, my definition includes my unique and intrinsically good human body.    Surely just as the Spirit of God gives breadth and depth to the bodily identity of Jesus, so, too, God brought us into being, a body with a soul.     So, yes, of course, the spirit has a role in our practice of love of God and love of neighbor.    But in our loving clearly those of us who love one another are not some vaporous ghosts without essential and permanent material bodies.   Love is not whole if it is expressed simply virtually.  Jesus, himself in his bodily life, his body living, dying and rising is the expression of love in its entirety.

          It is with His bodily voice that Jesus called out “Lazarus, come forth.”   With bodily eyes he looked on the risen Lazarus and the amazement of Mary and Martha.    His voice, too, told parables and peached with authority.   His feet walked on the waters.   His hands touched the eyes of the man born blind.  His ears heard the songs that welcomed him to Jerusalem and the curses that condemned him on the cross.  Jesus is nothing if not a body.   And if no body, then no soul as well.

       Finally about Lazarus:   Lazarus who experienced the death of his body might not enjoy the fact that Jesus brought him back to life.  But imagine that he, too, could want to be with Jesus and with his own sisters, with them in their bodies.   Yes, in death he knows of their spiritual prayers for him but their prayers miss their full impact in the absence of their bodies with him.    While we believe that heaven somehow makes up for this absence, we have now no way of understanding it.

       And finally about Jesus.   Christ's body enters us in the Eucharist.  His spirit in the host of Communion brings righteousness to our whole being body and soul.    In the promised time to come we like Lazarus will hear the voice of Jesus reuniting our body and soul in a risen life.

       As Easter approaches, it is good for us to reckon with any deafness that is in our spirits. On Easter We want to hear the voice of the Lord that raised Lazarus calling to us, too, no matter our deafness of any kind.    Sons and daughters of God, come out!

 

  

 

   The image at the center of the Jesuit Center's Chapel Mosaic, this a rendering by Marsha Rowe.

  Homily for Palm Sunday and The Passion of Matthew 

       We learn from our scriptures that Jesus’ violent death, brought on by those who were envious and fearful, fulfilled the loving plan of our divine Creator.    Jesus’ violent death is God’s way  of entering completely into our humanity and also revealing that the grace of God is the full gift of reconciliation.

In the past, I often imagined that Jesus did not need to go through such suffering and humiliation in order to bring about our redemption.    The decision of God to come among us in the humanity of Jesus, the decision that brings about the Incarnation itself, is itself radical enough, it seemed to me.   The fact that God walks among us with a human nature seemed enough to bring about the salvation of the whole human race.   Jesus was free by my past thinking to die a natural death in his bed in the way that most of us die, without a violent execution, and without utter humiliation.   Such a Jesus of wisdom and grace and love could certainly save us.  Such a Jesus could still call us to the highest standards of love of God and neighbor.

But the testimony of the earliest friends of Jesus is perfectly clear.   We read today about the final days of Jesus.   Instead of dying in his bed surrounded by his friends, instead of leaving as a last image that of a wise and honored teacher, the human Jesus, under the inspiration of the Trinity, freely chooses the way of abandonment, of humiliation and of the cross, freely chooses a bloody and brutal shattering of the connection of human body and soul.   But let us consider that within the theology of Jesus’ death, the violence itself carries two gifts for us.

The first:  Jon Sobrino, the Latin American theologian who witnessed a lot of violence, gave us one reason for the choice that Jesus makes:  God is making a conscious choice for all of humanity.  By embracing the most degrading and brutal death, God shows the divine love for us as fully as is humanly and divinely possible.   Jesus shows his love and his solidarity not only for us who are likely to die in our beds but also, more pointedly for those tortured in prison, for those victims of genocide, for those who suffer persecution for the sake of what is right.   By embracing the most degrading and brutal death, God in Jesus Christ shows how our divine creator in creating us offers us compassion whatever our suffering.

         Secondly, Jesus also makes another statement about the love that he and our creator God have for us human beings.  He pronounces from the cross these words: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke: 23-34).   The divinity of Jesus in some ways remains hidden as his body and soul are split one from the other.  But here, in Jesus’ complete gesture of forgiveness, the love of the divinity for all human beings, no matter their acts of evil, is overwhelmingly clear.   We write the words in huge letters:  “FATHER, FORGIVE THEM FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO.”  Jesus Christ dies brutally, his human body separates from his soul while his divinity remains hidden,  but still God is eager to recognize our ignorance and to forgive us.   Jesus longs for every human being to accept love and forgiveness.    It is in imitating him and dying to ourselves that we can show our acceptance of the divine mercy.   Jesus urges us to long for and work for that world where each of us can forgive others and be reconciled with one another.  On that day violence will vanish from the world.

       So yes as we enter this Holy Week, Jesus leads us in the bearing of our physical suffering, however severe.    And in the forgiveness, even of his murderers, he offers a way to the reconciliation that will end all violence.    May we eagerly accept his offer.

 

4^th Sunday in Lent    The Man Born Blind Jn 9      OSJ  Mar 15, 2026 (rev)

This Sunday we celebrate Laetare Sunday or Joy Sunday because we have completed half of Lent and our 40 days of Lent end in three weeks.   Our celebration includes the gospel of Jesus healing the man born blind.   It is one of the great short stories in John’s gospel.   First Jesus takes charge of the stage.  Then the blind Pharisees already out to get Jesus..some wanted earlier to stone him… the blind Pharisees enter the story.   Finally, however, the end of the story is an inspiration for us here today.

So First, The disciples are walking with Jesus through the Temple area on the Sabbath Day of a Jewish festival.   They see the Man Born Blind and ask Jesus a Pharisaical question about sin and punishment.    Who sinned and caused this blindness?  Did the blind man sin or his parents?    In this particular setting this seems an awkward question.   Do they whisper it, finding it too delicate to seem to be judging the blind man?   Should not the disciples be compassionate and ask the blind man if there is anything that he needs?      

But let’s not blame the disciples here for this question.  The point for us is Jesus’ answer.  His answer, in fact, treats the question as exactly the right question for the situation.   That is: There is no sin.   He was born this way, Jesus says, so that the works of God might be manifest in him.   Oh, had we thought of that?   Do we understand that our earthly bodies will gradually fall apart so that the glory of God can be manifested in us?  

Jesus prepares the blind man himself to be the perfect foil for all the other characters.   But the Blind Man seems to have no idea about what is happening, he is stoic at first.   And with this lack of awareness he remains passive as Jesus smears dirt and saliva on his eyes.  I can imagine people on the scene wondering about this mess.   Jesus simply tells the man to wash in the Pool of Siloam, and he goes immediately guided by a kind person eager to know what is to happen.   But the disciples?   I have the impression that the all-knowing Jesus nods to the disciples, and tells them to rest in place for a time.  A lot more is to happen and John has the story compressed into a tight string of events on a single day.

So the once blind man returns.   He can see and faces the puzzled stares of his neighbors who can’t believe their own eyes and question if he can be the blind man they knew.   But the healed man keeps repeating “I am the man.  Yes, I am the man.” These spoken words clearly proclaim he now knows even better who he is, once blind now healed.   He does not shout about seeing but declares some new way of talking about himself.

Whether out of joy or simply to get their friend certified as healed and eligible for full participation in Temple worship, some friends accompany the healed man to the Temple authorities, yes to the same Pharisees who already know enough about this Jesus to think of stoning him.

Now the story focuses on the troublesome Pharisees.  They are baffled.   They cannot make up their minds.  At first they think that they can use this healed man to help them convict Jesus of violating the Sabbath.   But this man will not be their patsy and when he expresses his own opinion that this Healer must be a prophet, they hesitate.   This guy is of no use to us.

The Pharisees then forget the accusation about Jesus healing on the Sabbath,   They adopt a new strategy that they think might work. They try to convict the man of lying to them about the healing.  They treat him as a fraud whom Jesus is using to trick the crowd.   In this they seek his parents help.   The parents confirm that, yes, the man was blind from birth but they offer no other testimony about the truth that their son can now see.  The Pharisees then hope, perhaps, that the parents would credit medicine or some other heavenly intervention for the healing.    Yes, the Pharisees in their own blindness try every angle to avoid accepting the truth that Jesus is a prophetic healer.   The healed man, after a second round of interrogation then with complete innocence suggests that maybe the Pharisees themselves are coming to see the wonder of what has happened.   The Pharisees react with anger.   They have had enough of this man.  Maybe he was healed but they consider him conceived in sin and they throw him out.   To them he is now more blinded with lies.   They blacklist him and he is unable to take part in higher forms of Temple worship.

So much for the Pharisees.  And finally Jesus learns that the healed man does not find the Pharisees to be worthy of his trust and has suggested to them that Jesus might be a healing prophet.  So Jesus seeks him out.   In this Jesus plans another gift beyond the gift of sight.   The once blind man now focuses his eyes on the man who has given him light and a new sense of himself.  And Jesus speaks the whole truth:

He asks “Do you believe in the Son of Man? The man responds “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.”  “You have seen him, Jesus says and the one speaking with you is he.”  The healed man, having discovered who he himself is, “Yes, I am the one”, also sees Jesus and speaks with that same straightforward conviction with which he has spoken all the day:  “Lord, I believe.”

In this story we, in this congregation, are represented not by the Pharisees, not by the by-standers, not by the parents or the Blind Man.   We are the disciples of Jesus in this drama now 2000 years later.    We today are the main characters.  Just as the disciples were following Jesus during his last days, we ourselves are seeking the light of Christ as we make our way through Lent and the mysteries of Jesus death and resurrection.   And the Blind Man is the foil who teaches us about ourselves.  

We disciples are often blind to God’s love.  So disturbing are the troubles in this world that we fail to be thankful for Jesus, the light of this world, a light that will help us in healing these troubles.   But the man born blind will not let the worldly ruling powers distract him from the truth.   Let’s ask for the same kind of amazement and integrity that guides this new person, once blind, to look closely at his healer and say simply, “Lord, I believe.”

 

Charles Schnorr, S.J. Award at Saint Joseph’s Prep’s

Father-Son, Alumni Communion Breakfast

 

First I want to thank everyone honoring me with this award (especially the Alumni Board).    And I congratulate this morning’s other awardees: Alex and Santiago.  They both are and will continue to be wonderful men for others.   

And with my award I want to honor Father Schnorr and the other Schnorr awardees down through the years.  This Communion Breakfast, is my favorite event of the Prep year.  In 2008 while at this event I was discerning an invitation to become President of the Prep.   That day I looked around at the outstanding faculty, staff, alumni, students and family members.    That day the Monaghan family received an award for taking up leadership in the kind of service their son, Patrick, enjoyed while a Prep student before he died in a tragic skiing accident.   That day I thought, “of course I will choose to play a role in this faithful community.”                                     

Fast backward, in 1955 I was one of the freshmen who entered the 17^th & Stiles St door and immediately turned left.  Down the gloomy 17^th St. corridor was classroom IJ.  Most mornings when we arrived our classroom door was locked.   We hung around in the corridor copying homework and trying to memorize a few Latin words.  But Father Schnorr, our homeroom teacher, arrived each day in time for class.    Then homeroom, then two periods of Latin and one of English.    Father has to be a saint to have done this for years with groups of 14 year old boys.  

Much later in life I met one of Father Schnorr’s nieces, Jeanne.  With us today, too are one of Father Schnorr’s nephews and his wife, Joseph and Rita Lane.  The niece, Jeanne, gave me a gift that her uncle had given to her, his biretta.  After the changes in the liturgy in the 1960’s, Fr Schnorr imagined sadly that he would never again have the opportunity to wear a biretta in procession or at an altar.  

But I brought it to celebrate him today, a second-class relic which I now momentarily prop on my head.  May Fr. Schnorr’s love of Christ and Prep’s Catholic and Jesuit mission continue to thrive among us!   Go Prep!  175 years!

 

 

 

Anthony J. Berret, S.J.  Funeral Homily Feb 24, 2026   RIP

The Jesuit community is in mourning.   We counted on Tony’s faith and wit to continue engaging us especially those of us in the retirement years.   And I was not surprised to hear that, even the day before his death, our retired brothers with whom he lived in Baltimore at Colombiere were enjoying his company.    We Jesuits and others here now offer our condolences to his family, especially to his niece Elizabeth.   Condolences also to his Sunday worship community, the Villanova Faith and Life Community of which Tony was a loved member, and condolences also to his many colleagues in the broader community of Saint Joseph’s University.   As a Jesuit educator there he inspired so many lives.

There are only a few of us Jesuits standing from the Saint Joseph’s Prep classes of the fifties where I first met Tony.   In particular Tony’s classmates: Joe Lacey who was living with Tony through the last two years or so.   And also classmate Rob Currie, who might be here except for his love for the people of Nicaragua, a country that will not let Jesuits back in should they leave.

Though I am not a direct classmate, I first met Tony when I was a freshman at St. Joseph’s Prep and joined the band, Tony already a trumpet player a year ahead of me and my clarinet.   There were some talented musicians in that class.  We struggled when I was a senior to match the good music of the year before.   And Thirty-five years ago Tony introduced me to his Villanova Faith and Life Community and sometimes I was blessed to join with him in worship or substituted as celebrant when he was otherwise engaged.  I will continue to value those relationships.   All of them loved Tony and many are here with us today.

Tony chose three wonderful readings and a psalm for today’s farewell.  All of them with that rythym of music and poetry that he enjoyed discovering in all of his study of literature.    He is now in that space of celebration that Isaiah describes.      We hear Tony’s voice here encouraging us in the words of Isaiah:   The LORD God will swallow up death forever.
The Lord God will wipe tears from every face;
This is the Lord, let’s be glad and rejoice in his salvation!”

 

And of course, the Psalm chosen reminds us of Tony’s jazz masses.   In the middle of his jazz Mass he would take off his chasuble, pick up his trumpet and join the musicians to make a joyful noise as the Psalm 150 instructs:

Praise God with the blast of the ram’s horn!
Praise God with lute and lyre!
Praise God with drum and dance!
Praise God with strings and pipe!

The second reading from Second Timothy uses some language from competitive sports and military combat.   “I have fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith. “  The language, you might think, doesn’t quite fit.   But if you have looked at his 300 page book “Music in the Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald” you will find how diligent Tony was in finishing that opus.   There are notations to about 250 song references in Fitzgerald’s literary texts and there is a painstaking bibliography.  He fought a good fight and finished that race. 

He was correctly proud of his ability to capture the attention of students in all of his teachings about modern American literature to capture the attention of students.   He knew that music was always in their ears and so references to music and poetry in texts helped them appreciate novels and short stories.  

Let me refer to just one of the songs that Tony discussed in his book about Music in Fitzgerald’s works.  Among the vast variety of musical references is a passing reference to a song with a particular Catholic theme.   Fitzgerald refers in his popular novel “The Great Gatsby” to a song from 125 years ago called “The Rosary.”  A song called “The Rosary.” Its theme is the enduing power of love even in a time of loss. “I tell each bead until the end on which a cross is hung.”  (repeat)   Tony prints some words of the text and some musical notation in his own work.    But in Fitzgerald’s text one reads simply of hearing the song’s melody in the background, no song text and to the reader, of course, no sound.   But the song’s words and sounds have a meaning to which Fitzgerald eludes with the simple naming of the song.   Tony writes that this song with the beads and then the cross fits its particular context in the novel.  He writes “the song expresses the loss, grief, resignation and sacrifice that Nick applies to Gatsby’s death.”

I think here that Tony reveals his own commitment to telling each bead until the end knowing that all of us must join the Lord in his death.  Yes, 86 years of telling the beads of life.

Each bead..Yes.  We Jesuits remember in the past few years that Tony, while at Manresa Hall, was present each day for Mass.  Well, true he did not arrive in time for the communal recitation of the rosary itself but he was engaged in the celebration of the Lord’s death and resurrection when the telling of the beads came to its end.   And he was always engaged at the Mass   There were times when he would offer an amendment to the homilies the celebrants presented.  One day I praised Jesus’ response to the devil’s temptations in the desert when He declared to the devil, “I will not put the Lord my God to the test.” After Mass Tony reminded me of times before a work of healing when Jesus did something like testing the Father, that is, praying to his Father as he began the healing.  And the Agony in the Garden was at least a question of hesitation.  We might argue about these as tests but Tony was always protective of Jesus’s human nature.

Another example of this:  I remember another time a few of us were discussing Jesus’ disregard for his parents when at 12 years old he quietly remained in the Jerusalem Temple when Mary and Joseph and the rest of their party began their journey back to Nazareth after a  Feast of the Passover.    That thoughtless disregard for his worrying parents suggested to Tony that the child Jesus when younger was quite capable of acting like a typical troublesome kid.   Tony kept the faith but not with all the standard piety.

And finally the gospel, this one also with poetry and song.   And here another testament to the confidence that Tony had in God’s care for him.    I am moved especially with this text because it was one that we shared together at a Manresa Hall Mass.   At that Mass there were remarks indicating some relief and satisfaction that the gospels included experiences of older men and women, people like Simeon and Anna, who were thrilled to hold in their arms the child Jesus.   Yes, we think of the usual disciples, both men and women, as the young who could follow Jesus on foot all over Judea and Galilee.   But what about the older among us and those who struggle to walk, let alone walking distances?   Here Simeon takes our place and sings a kind of song supporting our call to faith:

“Now, master, let your servant go in peace according to your word,
 because my eyes have seen your salvation.
(You prepared this salvation in the presence of all peoples.)
 It’s a light for revelation to the Gentiles
 and a glory for your people Israel.”

And this is Tony’s final gift to us.   We could well spend all day telling of his gifts to individuals and communities.  He now lives in the full light of God’s salvation.   As he filled our ears with song and our eyes with the light of faith, let us hear his song in our ears and may his light shine in us.