Death and the Monsignor

In paradisum deducant te Angeli; in tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres, et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Ierusalem. Chorus angelorum te suscipiat, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere aeternam habeas requiem.

May the angels lead you into paradise; upon your arrival, may the martyrs receive you and lead you to the holy city of Jerusalem. May the ranks of angels receive you, and with Lazarus, once a poor man, may you have eternal rest.

Today I sang those words, and I cried.

I don't suppose I knew Monsignor Pointek very well. Not personally, at least. I believe he always scared me a little as a child. Growing up, he was a part of my life, and the life of Tehachapi. I don't think there was a time when I did not know him. He was always around, saying Mass when Msgr. Barnes couldn't, hearing confessions, visiting the sick, and the imprisoned, and the poor, and all while he was an elderly, retired priest. He was always to be seen at Kelcy's Cafe on Tehachapi Boulevard of a morning, and he always had a pocket full of Snapple caps to hand out to the children. I remember him mostly as a funny, eccentric little old man, with his long white beard and his many peculiarities. He was convinced that if he walked only on the middle of the squares on the post office floor he would avoid Alzheimer's. But he was also a good man. As Fr. Michael said at the funeral Mass, "he was a man who was not in tune with what the world believes to be important. He was a man in tune with Christ." There are countless stories about Msgr.'s eccentricities, but there are also countless stories of the good he did for the Church. In late 2013, Msgr. reached his 100th year. And how did he do it? To quote a priest friend of his, "Good clean living, breakfasts at Kelcy's, and a deep love for the life that God gave him."

As I said, I did not know Msgr. very personally. But as we sang "In Paradisum" while the casket left the church, I began to cry. Funerals always have that effect on me ever since the death of my grandfather, and that of the girl I went to school with, Christine Allen. As I sang those words through my tears, I realized how incredibly beautiful the "In Paradisum" is. It is the kind of beauty that brings tears to my eyes, because the ranks of angels are coming to receive the soul of the deceased and lead him into paradise. It is beautiful because that is beauty, that life after death with Beauty himself. We do not despair, nor fear death, because we shall have life. It is the kind of beauty that makes you long for the indescribable, yet makes you feel at peace. It is a sorrowful moment when the casket leaves the church, yet there is peace. 

I have often pondered death. I do not understand it. Yet today I had this incredible feeling of peace. It was as if I could see it, see Msgr.'s soul being born up by the angels to be received by Christ, and Christ was smiling on him, and reaching out his hands to greet him. Though I cried, it was certainly more for our loss and the reminder of my other losses than for any loss on Msgr.'s part. Whenever I think of Faith, I think of death. It is faith that makes us rejoice in the death of a person we love. It is how we move on. And I think of how great is the gift that God gave us - his Son, so that we might have that joy in death. I cannot but weep.

May the soul of Monsignor Francis Pointek rest in peace. May Christ and his angels come to greet him, and bear him up to eternal life.

"I want this gathering for family and friends to be a joyful time so that all persons meeting in memory of me shall renew loving ties to each other in celebration of my entry into eternal joy. I ask my family and friends to remember me with joyful, not sorrowful, though, and to keep me in their prayers. I assure them that they are loved and remembered by me in prayers for them, and they should do the same for each other. Believe in Jesus and act according to His will so that we shall all meet again in eternal joy."

~ Reverend Monsignor Francis J. Pointek

September 23, 1913 - January 15, 2014

Ordained May 26, 1940