Once a month, as a part of my blog, I am going to write a memoir of some event in my 50+ years of ministry. I hope they will be amusing and occasionally inspirational. Today's is definitely not in the latter category. You'll have to judge as to whether it is amusing.
The place was Albuquerque in the early 1970's. I was preaching at the Pennsylvania St. Church of Christ. Albuquerque is one of my favorite places in the world, and the few months that we lived there provided lots of good memories.
I received a call from a funeral home, asking me if I would deliver a eulogy for someone I didn't know. I have long had a thing for funerals. No offense, but I had MUCH rather do funerals than weddings. They're simpler. They provide an opportunity to minister to the family and I have never had a complaint from the recipients. They also pay better.
So I told them "Yes, of course." They told me that the funeral was for a man in his 70's who had moved to Albuqerque from Boston. He was Italian and Catholic. When I asked them why a priest was not officiating they told me that he moved to town recently and that he hadn't linked up to the Catholic church yet. They also told me that he had no friends in town and that most of the people present would be flying in from the East Coast. There was no family to meet with, so I would have to "wing it" with a generic service. Anything that would be typical for seventyish Italian Catholics would do.
When the day came for the service I left home a little bit late. There was some construction in the streets and I suddenly had the panicky feeling that I might be late. Calming myself with the thought that they couldn't begin without me I got there as quickly as I could.
When I got to the funeral home, I immediately noted all the nice cars outside. Cadillacs, Lincolns, and even a few limosines with chauffers gathered together having a smoke.
I wasn't really late, but everyone else was early.
When I walked through the door I was greeted with the smell of flowers. I can honestly say that I have never seen so many flowers at any funeral. I noticed the distinct smell of orchids.
Then I looked at the gathered audience, all sitting reverently silent.
All men.
All Italian, well-dressed, slicked-haired, men.
Now this was before the Godfather movies and the Sopranos television shows. But I had seen enough George Raft and Edward G. Robinson movies that I got the picture pretty quickly. I suddenly wondered how the man had died! I also wondered if he had really not connected with the local Catholic diocese or if the Archbishop of Albuquerque had rather keep his distance from this gentleman.
I felt terribly undressed, even though I had on my Hart, Schaffner, and Marx suit, and felt a bit windblown since my hair wasn't slicked back. I even wondered whether my pea-green Pontiac station wagon might be towed away from among the luxury cars and limosines. It certainly did look out of place.
I knew I was not going to tell the joke that one of my Italian friends had told me on a recent trip to Chicago. ("You wanna buy some good Italian tires? Dago tru mud, dago tru snow, and wen dago flat, dago 'wop, wop, wop'.") It was funny since he was Italian and he laughed when he told it. But I wished on this occasion that I had never heard it. I didn't even want to smile while looking at all these sons of Sicily, for fear they would think I was smiling at them.
I was also worried about my sermon. Not because there was anything wrong with it, but because it was in my inside coat pocket and I didn't want to reach in too quickly to get it. I didn't want that move to be misunderstood.
Well, the service itself was uneventful. The music was nice, I did my best to talk about the uncertainties of life, the need to make the best possible use of our time, and that no one of us is promised tomorrow. I also talked about the value of friends and I was glad that Mr. Moscati had so many, who had come so far to be there.
The audience was expressionless all the way through. I had the idea that they would have been that way regardless. At the end of the service, they walked by the body, crossed themselves, and went back to their waiting luxury cars. They were as silent in leaving as they had been during the ceremony.
One gentleman named Sal (honestly) came up and thanked me. He said it was wonderful, and he gave me an envelope which contained five $100 bills. The most I ever got for a funeral any time and this was over thirty years ago.
As I remember, the casket was solid bronze. It took eight or nine cemetery workers and a forklift to move it. And there were three vans to transport all the flowers. But no one went to the cemetery from the funeral except the funeral directors and me. Not even Sal. I got the idea that everyone who attended the service simply wanted to be sure Mr. Moscati was dead. Having verified that, their duty was done.
Funny how the mind works. I distinctly remember that when I got back to the funeral home with the funeral directors, I was momentarily afraid to start the engine of my Pontiac. Relieved that there was no bomb in it, I drove gleefully home with a story to tell Edna Mae and money to spend for Christmas that we hadn't expected. Whatever Mr. Moscati did in life, he blessed us in death.
When I told Edna Mae the story, she even questioned whether we should use the money. She said, "What if they were really members of the mafia?" I told her that even if they were, the Devil had had this money long enough, and now it was our turn to do something good with it. Since she was accustomed to trying to make ends meet on a preacher's salary, she didn't take much convincing.
I have no conclusion to this story, or any moral. In fact, I find that lots of things that happen to us in life are like that.
Silas
ITALIAN TRIVIA
The most common surname in Italy is "Rossi."
"Pinocchio," though known for his nose, means "pine eyes."
The Great Seal of the State of Maryland, has an Italian phrase written across the bottom: "fatti maschii parole femine." Loosely translated, that means "manly deeds, womanly words." Not a bad motto in any language.
And the word "mafia" comes from an old Sicilian word which originally came from Arabic, and means "sanctuary." It brought to mind the caves where people in Sicily hid when they were invaded. Later, it came to mean "swagger, and boldness."
So, all things considered, summer is pretty great here. Even though the sun gets bright.
passes, it won't be long until winter.
