Late, but only recently posted: Father George Rutler’s homily for the Mass for the repose of the soul of Richard John Neuhaus on the first anniversary of his death: He is Not Here . It includes:
Tonight the risen Christ is offered in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the soul of Richard John Neuhaus, and many gathered here discern Christ more clearly because of how we discerned him in Richard. Christ’s Eucharist is death and resurrection together. Father Neuhaus said to me nonchalantly on the telephone one day: “All of us are dying.”At first I thought he was belaboring the obvious, but soon I learned that it was his way of telling me with crafted delicacy that he had only a few weeks to live. He had already taken the temperature of mortality in his book, As I Lay Dying , in which he said, “I believe that one learns to die, not by philosophizing, but by dying.” In the graceful way he died, he made his own body, stripped of its letters and gilding, an elegant second edition which we should call As I Lay Rising .
While I have you, can I ask you something? I’ll be quick.
Twenty-five thousand people subscribe to First Things. Why can’t that be fifty thousand? Three million people read First Things online like you are right now. Why can’t that be four million?
Let’s stop saying “can’t.” Because it can. And your year-end gift of just $50, $100, or even $250 or more will make it possible.
How much would you give to introduce just one new person to First Things? What about ten people, or even a hundred? That’s the power of your charitable support.
Make your year-end gift now using this secure link or the button below.
