The puzzle

The St. George's Cross

The Bronze Pelican

Father Frank, the pastor of Jesus Our Risen Savior Parish in Spartanburg, delivered the homily at Dad's funeral Mass.
He didn't get into too many specifics, and some in the family were initially disappointed in that.
He has a theme he uses often, my mother said. He talks about visiting cemeteries and mostly finding pleasant stories by piecing together the information on the headstones.
He also once saw his own name on a headstone and high-tailed it out of there.
And he started Dad's homily by talking about some cemeteries.
Like all of us, we believed Dad was the greatest man to walk the earth, actually exceeding a certain carpenter's son from Nazareth, so we wanted the specifics. I also wanted them because he and Mom visited the day before and he quizzzed her, and he took notes.
He did allow a eulogy of sorts right before the Mass ended, which is not strictly in the Catholic rite. And I got to say the words I said below, to offer a little glimpse.
And Fr. Frank did get into some specifics later in the homily.
My dad went to Ireland as a young man, he said.
"And they didn't want to give him back," he added, making us laugh. He went for a summer visit and got stuck when World War II broke out. Fear of U-boats.
I don't want to dismiss the sermon as an easy, boilerplate homily, though, because of the way it made me think when Fr. Frank also talked about the puzzle.
The list of things he might have said would be just pieces in a puzzle, he said. You don't know what the whole picture is until you put it all together.
And before the day was out, I got what he meant.
But I have to add to Fr. Frank, that sometimes, you can make out part of the puzzle as you do it.
My wife and son did a 1,000-piece puzzle on the dining room table once.
Was this red dot a flower on the house? Nope. Later, it turned out to be part of the small canoe of the guy on the lake.
Surrounding me at the funeral were pieces in my father's puzzle.
Three young men were the altar servers. They were brothers, all sons of a friend of my sister Anne. The Ravan boys. They are all my father's godsons.
As we were sitting in the limo, waiting to go to the cemetery, a young lady approached the car to talk to Mom. I thought it was a woman I remembered, but it was her daughter. She was the spitting image of her mom, now grown up. She used to come over to the house and was Dad's second unofficial grandchild in Spartanburg.
But she was his goddaughter.
Her mother? My mom and dad were her sponsors when she decided to become a Catholic.
Boom boom boom.
Pieces of the puzzle, right there, and pieces in the same area of the puzzle.
I also thought as we came back to church for a lunch provided by the Bereavement Guild at the church about Dad's obituary. I wrote the main body of it, and mentioned that my father had received two awards from the Catholic Church and Boy Scouting, the Bronze Pelican and the St. George's Cross.
I don't know what specifics were cited when my father was nominated, but here's what a current application form for the award says about them --

• "The St. George Award is a national recognition approved by the National Catholic Committee on Scouting. The Bronze Pelican Award is a diocesan recognition defined by the Diocesan Catholic Committee on Scouting with the approval of the local ordinary. Either award may be presented to any adult who is working in the Scouting Program. It may be given to clerics, laity, or Scouters of other faiths. 
• "The purpose of these awards is to recognize each recipient's outstanding contribution to the spiritual  development of Catholic youth in the program of the Boy Scouts of America. Other awards are available to  recognize general Scouting achievements by districts, local councils, regions, and the national office.  However, recommendations for the St. George and Bronze Pelican Awards should carefully detail how the nominee meets the selection guidelines described below. 
• "... In most cases, the Bronze Pelican is presented to a first-time selected  nominee. The St. George Award is presented to a nominee who has previously received the Bronze Pelican Award and who has continued to significantly influence Catholic Scouting for at least two additional years."

In a life having gone to hundreds of Masses, I vaguely remember a piece here or there of a few sermons, even from priests that I respect, admire and love.
But I can remember walking home one night, accompanied for a time by Mr. Nicholas Palazzo, our adult scout leader, who was teaching the class so us Scouts in Troop 56 could get our Ad Altare Dei awards. That's the award for Catholic Boy Scouts. We had already gotten our Parvuli Dei awards, the award for Catholic Cub Scouts. I remember a specific lesson Mr. Palazzo told me after class about the Beatitudes and about mercy.
We were definitely a Catholic Scout troop and one of the tasks they took seriously was teaching us our faith -- in a way that got us medals we could hang from our uniforms.
Again, I don't remember what my dad did for his, because they obviously wouldn't let him sign off on his own kids. But I remember we drove upstate once when he got his Bronze Pelican, and I think Monsignor Vier of St. Raymond's was there to give it to him. I remember he got his St. George's Cross at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, the same day my brother got his Ad Altare Dei there.
Boom boom boom. More pieces of the puzzle. Same area of the puzzle. The picture really took shape.
It didn't occur to me until I started writing this to add in my father's two daughters and his two sons, whom he, along with Mom, made sure got to church every Sunday when we were growing up. Whom he put through seven to eight years of parochial school. Two daughters who got one to two years at Catholic high schools. The schooling was not free in any way.
At the luncheon after the funeral and even more clearly now, I see "the guy on the canoe in the middle of the lake" in the puzzle that is my father.
Given that we are not yet complete, and we are not sure to what degree of success it has happened, still it is clear, my father was a man who brought other people to God.
My pastor has a theme he uses often in his sermons.
"Who here wants to go to Heaven?" he asks. All the hands go up.
"Who here wants to be a saint?"
The hands go down.
Which perplexes and confounds him. Because by definition, if you go to Heaven, you are a saint. So to go to Heaven, you have to try to be a saint.
"We are called to be saints," he says, chiding us.
I don't know how many times my father was a godfather. I think about the two times I have been asked and done it, and I realize what a poor job I have been doing with my goddaughter Gracie and my godson Talmadge. That I hope to change.
I don't know how many Cub and Boy scouts he counseled on their way to a chest ribbon or two. Had to be more than a few to get those awards. The Bronze Pelican might have be pro forma thank you for anyone who pitches in. But the St. George's Cross? Not for a slacker.
So the clear picture I am getting from this part of the puzzle that is my father is this -- he was a holy man.
It is not hyperbole. I am not bragging on him. Rather, it is daunting to have that example to follow up to.
About a week or so before he died, Fr. Frank came to visit him. He gave him, he told my mother, the Anointing of the Sick. That is the more-used name of the Sacrament that doubles as Last Rites. And he did mention that my father would obtain a plenary indulgence upon death, so Dad got the Last Rites. He also took Communion, which in that context, is called Viaticum. Food for the journey. Fr. Frank also asked Dad if he had anything to confess. He said he did.
Fr. Frank promptly kicked my mother and sister out of the room and heard Dad's confession. A couple of minutes later, he was out and looking for Mom and Catherine.
"Where did you go?" he said.
Mom said she figured he would need some time, and Fr. Frank said, "You, maybe. Not him."
Knowing he had confession, an anointing and communion, I put on Facebook, as a joke, that Bud was an instrument of grace. But that's usually been the case.
It was just a bit of Catholic humor.
Now that I'm putting the puzzle together, I realize.
It was no joke.
The fact that there is a new saint in heaven is no joke.
The fact that we can call him St. Bud. That's a joke.

One he would tell, over and over again.