Homily at Memorial Mass
for Mike Giannattasio[1]
March
17, 2017
Wis
4: 7-15
Rom
14: 7-12
“The
just man, tho he die early, shall be at rest.
For the age that is honorable comes not with the passing of time, nor
can it be measured in terms of years” (Wis 4: 7-8).
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Mike was very proud of his family. He sent me this photo at the time of young Mike's graduation from college,
which seems to have been in 2012. From left: Kathy, Mike jr., Mike sr., and Kevin.
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People took
such a view—age, good health, an abundance of material goods were signs of
God’s good pleasure—because this life was the only life they knew. You got blessed by God here because “here”
was all there was.
The
Book of Wisdom, chronologically one of the last of the books of the Old
Testament, offers a different perspective.
That perspective gives us a lot of consolation and abundant hope when we
consider Michael.
After
those opening verses, the Wisdom reading speaks of the just man’s virtues and
how God had to remove him from our corrupt world “lest wickedness pervert his
mind” (4:11). “His soul was pleasing to
the Lord; therefore he sped him out of the midst of wickedness” (4:14).
I hope
you weren’t the wicked company from which the Lord rescued Michael!
Seriously,
we don’t come to the Eucharist to canonize our deceased loved one—not Mike, not
Rich Mercurio’s dad,[3]
not anyone. We come to pray for them, to
ask the Lord to cleanse them of their sins—all of us are sinners—and make them
just and “pleasing to the Lord” (4:14).
We ask the Lord to bring them into the heavenly kingdom among his chosen
ones, his elect (cf. 4:15).
We may consider that Mike died young. Certainly by American expectations he
did. In this he preaches a sermon to
us. Joe Ruggiero, since he deals with
death every day,[4]
probably could preach a better one. A
famous tombstone epitaph reads
Remember, man that passeth by:
As thou art now, so once was I.
And as I am, so thou must be;
Prepare thyself to follow me.
Where Mike has gone, you and I shall go in
our turn. St. Paul cautions us about
that: “We shall all stand before the
judgment seat of God” and “each of us shall give an account of himself to God”
(Rom 14:10,12). We pray that our Lord
Jesus recognized Mike as a good and faithful husband, father, and friend and
welcomed him when he came to judgment.
Some of you have spoken about how much you
treasure what you learned at Savio.
Certainly the book knowledge—the math, English, history, and all
that—was important. Friendship and
life-knowledge were more important, as you have experienced so powerfully as a
class. [Name omitted] keeps telling me
that was my doing. You guys have known
for 40 years better than to believe him, haven’t you? [loud laughter] Rather, I’d say it was God’s doing and your
openness to God’s grace.
Many of you also learned the most important
lesson of Dom Savio—what young Dominic himself lived: my friends will be Jesus and Mary. I’ll keep Sunday as a holy day. I’ll go to confession and Communion
often. I’d rather die than commit sin.
When Mike came to God’s judgment a month ago,
and when we appear there, Christ isn’t going to care how many books we
read—believe it or not! No quiz on A Tale of Two Cities or Jonathan Livingston Seagull.[5] Nor about sinking a sky hook[6]
now and then, or about the Pats or our fine suburban homes or even our
marvelous class reunions. Christ cares
about our relationship with him, our having made him the center of our
lives. As St. Paul says, “None of us
lives for himself…. If we live, we live
for the Lord…. This is why Christ died
and came to life, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living” (Rom
14:7-9).
The take-home from your Savio education and
from these months that we’ve gone thru with Michael needs to be that Christ
loves you, and he really wants to be part of your life: in prayer, Scripture reading, the sacraments,
and example, i.e., you try to model of your life and your attitudes on
him. He wants you to be in a strong,
healthy relationship with him. Keep that
strong and healthy, or do something now if you need to, to make it strong and
healthy. (Both Fr. John and Fr. Jay[7]
will be happy to help you get there; me too, while I’m here.)
If you don’t want to hear St. Paul appealing
to you, then hear Michael appealing from eternity, just as he appealed to a
good number of you to come and reunite with your classmates. When our own time comes, early or late in
life, to follow where Mike has gone, may it be said that the Lord found us
pleasing to him, and so he snatched us away from the world’s wickedness and
brought us home to live with him.
God bless you all: Kathy, Mike, and Kevin; Class of ’77; and all
who loved and mourn Michael G.
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Members of the Class of '77 at the Great Savio Reunion in 2012.
Mike G. is at the lower right; your humble blogger at the lower left.
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