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On behalf of all who have come this morning to gather in prayer at Queen
of Heaven Church in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, let me extend our heartfelt
sympathy:
-
Jane, on the death of your beloved husband;
-
Bob
and Ed, on the death of your beloved father;
-
Uncle Dick and Aunt Florence on the death of your beloved brother;
and,
-
Erik, Brenden, Erin, Brian and Gretchen, on the death of your
beloved grandfather.
Personal experience has taught us that Bob Schultek was a very good man,
husband, father, brother, grandfather, and friend. The grief we share
in your personal loss is a testimony to the quality, not just the
quantity, of his eighty-two years of life. It was a full life—not long
enough, to be sure—but long enough that, like you, we miss him already.
Bob’s passing from this temporal life into eternal life leaves a void in
our hearts, a void only God can fill. We come to Queen of Heaven Church
today to give thanks for the gift of Bob’s life and to request that God
fill the void Bob’s passing leaves in our hearts.
We all
experienced Bob to be full of sound, practical, and sometimes
unsolicited advice! Yes, Bob was always willing to share anecdotes,
directions about how to approach and to do so many things correctly, and
many (sometimes even funny) jokes. As helpful as all of this was as we
confronted the challenges and problems of daily life—and it was very
helpful—it was Bob’s gentle smile that revealed something more valuable,
spiritually speaking, than did all of that advice as well as all of
those anecdotes, directions, and jokes.
What
did Bob’s gentle smile reveal?
It
communicated to a man who was very much at peace with himself!
It was
this revelation—the peace of God our hearts hunger for—that St. Paul
made note of when writing the Philippians. In that epistle, St. Paul
stated:
The
Lord is at hand. So, have no anxiety about anything, but in everything
by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made
known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
The
profound spiritual lesson St. Paul is addressing concerns the importance
of not allowing anxiety about the challenges and problems of daily life
to overpower us but, instead, to allow thanksgiving to guide how we
approach each day. When our hearts are filled with thanksgiving,
gratitude for God’s many blessings—the gift of life itself, the gift of
all those people around us, and the gift of being able to “take on the
day” as Dr. Laura says—provides the sure foundation to set about meeting
the challenges and problems of daily life.
Think
about what happens when we aren’t thankful for all these gifts. We
begin to take everything and everyone for granted and, as when we do, we
begin to look at how everything and everybody doesn’t meet our
expectations. In turn, we become anxious about so many things and
people. Rather than taking on the day, we allow the challenges and
problems of daily life to preoccupy us to the point that there is no
peace in our hearts or in our minds.
St.
Paul reminds us to root ourselves in thanksgiving so that we can put
into proper perspective the challenges and problems which surely will
come our way. We don’t pray, “Oh God, what an awful day I have to
face. Give me the grace to deal with X, Y, and Z because, without Your
grace, these people and things will drive me absolutely stark raving
mad!” No, according to St. Paul, we pray with hearts full of
thanksgiving. “Gracious Father,” we say, “I thank you for the gift of
life, for the opportunity to see the sun rise, to feel its warmth, and
to know how You have blessed me. Keep these blessings before my mind’s
eye so that I will see Your presence in my life today as I confront
situations and people who need to experience Your blessing in their
lives.” When we pray with hearts full of thanksgiving, St. Paul assures
us, “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will keep your
hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” As Christians, this is how we
can experience that wonderful spirit of peace and confidence that makes
it possible to take on each day—despite the many challenges and
problems—without anxiety.
How
often have we heard those words? But, more to the point, how often do
we invite those words to travel downward after they enter our ears and
pass into our brains so that they penetrate into the deepest recesses of
our hearts and are woven into the fabric of how we take on each day?
For most of us gathered here today, I suspect St. Paul’s words “sound
nice.” Then, as challenges and problems raise their ugly heads each
day, we become so caught up in these trivialities that St. Paul’s words
lose their richness, history, and meaning. And, then, we end each day
filled with anxiety about what the morrow will bring.
For
example, take the greatest challenge and problem every human being must
confront and is the particular challenge and problem confronting us
today: the fact of death. No evil possesses greater power to rob us of
“the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding.” When we look the
fact of death square in the eye—whether that is the inexplicable death
of a young person or even the more explicable death of an elderly
person—we are compelled to come to terms with our limitations,
especially that of mortality. With grief and anxiety pushing our hearts
to the point they teeter on the brink of despair, we forget how God has
greatly blessed us and fail to be thankful for those many blessings,
particularly the life of the one who has died. We choose to allow death
to rob us of the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. Our
hearts and minds are not “in Christ Jesus,” but in the grip of the evil
called “Death.” This is evident in the anxiety that fills our hearts.
Yes,
death—even a death that “makes sense”—tests us mightily. Is it possible
to keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, so that the greatest evil
of all—the power of death—doesn’t overwhelm us to the point that our
hearts are filled with anxiety?
In his
epistle to the Philippians, St. Paul tells of the secret he learned
about how to be content in whatever circumstances he found himself,
whether those consisted of making do with whatever was available or
wherever he found himself, even when that involved imprisonment. At the
heart of St. Paul’s secret is a deep and abiding trust in God that isn’t
shattered simply because bad things happen to good people. The key to
developing this trust, St. Paul notes, is to do “what is true, whatever
is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,
and whatever is gracious.” Think about these things, St. Paul says.
But don’t just think about them, he warns the Philippians. More
importantly, put them into practice because they aren’t just really good
ideas or principles. When put into action, these form a daily routine—a
form of “spiritual hygiene” or “spiritual exercise” if you will—rooted
in God. When we focus upon truth, honor, justice, purity of heart and
motive, and how to embody the love of Christ, we can offer our requests
to God. This is how the peace of God which surpasses all understanding
keeps our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, St. Paul tells us. When we
don’t focus upon truth, honor, justice, purity of heart and motive, or
embody the spirit of the love of Christ, we go through our days with
hearts filled with anxiety.
The
peace about which St. Paul has written is identical to the peace we
heard the Psalmist express today in Psalm 23. Along with the Psalmist,
St. Paul believed in his soul that “even though I walk through the
darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your
staff—they comfort me.” Even while his sustenance was meager prison
rations, St. Paul knew that the Lord has prepared a table before him in
the presence of his enemies. Even in the midst of adversity, St. Paul
knew the Lord had anointed his head with oil, and that his cup
overflowed. When unsure of his earthly fate, St. Paul proclaimed with
absolute confidence, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the
days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
All of this implies a profound, yet very practical faith. Psalm 23—to
which many Jews and Christians naturally turn at the time of
death—conveys a profound spiritual truth concerning how we ought to live
our lives, especially as we confront the greatest of all evils that can
cause great anxiety: death.
Earlier
I said Bob’s gentle smile that revealed a man who was very much at peace
with himself. Bob knew and experienced the peace of God which surpasses
all understanding, and this is what kept Bob’s heart and mind in Christ
Jesus. That smile was an external sign of a deeper inner and reality,
the spiritual reality of a man who kept himself focused upon truth,
honor, justice, purity of heart and motive, and how to embody the love
of Christ.
Where
did Bob learn these important spiritual lessons? Was it in the
rough-and-tumble of growing up in the harsh realities of life in
northern Minnesota? Was it learning to be an engineer or as a member of
the nation’s Navy? Did he learn these important spiritual lessons as a
spouse, father, grandfather, and friend? Was it as Bob spent countless
hours over more than two decades traveling to and from business trips?
Perhaps
these experiences helped hone these spiritual lessons. But, there had
to be something upon which those experiences could build. And, that
foundation was Bob’s relationship with God nourished by the Eucharist
and Bob’s devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
As what
we call an “almost daily” communicant, Bob sought spiritual nourishment
before taking on the day. By hearing God’s Word and partaking in the
Bread of Life, these divine gifts made it possible for Bob to remain
focused upon truth, honor, justice, purity of heart and motive, and how
to embody the love of Christ. In this way, the peace of God, which
surpasses all understanding, kept Bob’s heart and mind in Christ Jesus,
as was evident in his smile.
Perhaps
a few of us recognized Bob’s love and reverence for the Sacred Heart of
Jesus. The clue was to be discovered upon entering 18 Farmhouse Court
in Cherry Hill, NJ, where we saw the picture of the Sacred Heart
displayed in the entry way and the kitchen as well. But, quite likely,
very few of us knew that Bob carried in his wallet a picture of the
Sacred Heart, the daily prayer of dedication, as well as Cross of the
Sacred Heart. Bob held the Sacred Heart close—in his wallet—so that
wherever he traveled, the peace of God, which surpasses all
understanding, would keep Bob’s heart and mind in Christ Jesus.
President Ronald Reagan once quipped, “You can tell a lot about a
fellow’s character by the way he eats jellybeans.” Former Office Depot
CEO Steve Odland has said, “You can tell a lot about a person by the way
he or she treats the waiter.” The Dating Goddess, who provides online
advice for adventures in dating when you’re 40 or older, has noted, “You
can tell a lot of your date by the way he drives.” An anonymous
individual has said, “You can tell a lot about a person's character by
where they leave the shopping cart in the parking lot.” James D. Miles
has asserted: You can easily judge a man by how he treats those who can
do nothing for him.
In Bob
Schultek’s smile, we saw something deeper being revealed. It was the
unique and unrepeatable spirit God breathed into Bob when creating him.
“The Lord is at hand,” St. Paul wrote the Philippians. And that is why
Bob’s smile made our anxiety melt away. His smile reminded us that the
Lord is at hand.
As St.
Paul sat in prison and confronted many challenges and problems, he
experienced the peace which surpasses all human understanding. The Good
News today is that our challenges and problems—especially those
presented by the greatest evil of all—don’t have to vanish before we can
experience the peace to which God calls us. No, all we need is to be
thankful and to focus upon truth, honor, justice, purity of heart and
motive, and to embody the spirit of the love of Christ in our lives.
This prepares us, St. Paul says, to make our requests known to God.
And so,
with hearts for of thanksgiving for the gift God has graced us with in
the person and long life of Robert V. Schultek which taught us this
important spiritual lesson, we pray:
V.
Eternal rest grant unto
Bob, O Lord.
R.
And let perpetual light
shine upon him.
V.
May Bob’s soul and all
the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace.
R.
Amen.
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HOMILY
(not delivered)
