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Homily for the Funeral for Deacon Joseph R. Curtis
July 16, 2009
As nearly as I can recall, it was late in the winter of 1989 that I got a call
from my friend, Joe Curtis, asking if there was a place for a deacon here at the
Cathedral. He’d been doing diaconal ministry in suburban parishes, he
reminded me, but felt called to ministering in the heart of the city.
I had no
trouble telling him yes. I had known Joe for more than ten years – before
and during his diaconal formation -- and I knew that the streets of Seattle were
his place. He had walked them in this three-piece suit when he would leave
his cushy, high-in-the-clouds office on the 48th floor of the SeaFirst “black
box” to go down to the Morrison Hotel for his weekly Bible Study with street
people. He had also walked those same streets late at night on Operation
Nightwatch when he frequented seedy bars and taverns that would have caused his
Board of Directors at SeaFirst to blanche. The streets of downtown Seattle
were definitely Joe’s turf – which is another way of saying that St. James
Cathedral was his turf. So I told him, yes, we could use a deacon.
The rest is history.
A confession:
I wish I had had more time to prepare this homily. Joe only died Tuesday
morning. But even if I’d had a month, I’m sure I’d fall short.
There’s just too much that could and should be said. So I’m going to
settle for “less is better.” Joe would probably approve. It’s not a
very good banking axiom, I’ll admit, but it does get to the heart of a deacon’s
ministry. Deacons are people who become less so that others – especially
the poor and the overlooked – can become more.
Of course,
‘Deacon’ wasn’t Joe’s complete identity. For 54 years he was Lois’ beloved
husband, and for the past 9 years he was Martha’s. He was also a loving
father to Ann and Mary, and a loving grandfather to Matt, Molly, Riley, Kelsey,
and Hunter. And he was a very prominent banker in town, too, as well as a
much sought-after board member, a gentleman farmer, a crack gardener, and a
pretty fine poet. But you’ll understand, I’m sure, if it’s Joe the
Christian and the deacon I focus on in this homily because that’s the Joe that I
– and the parishioners of St. James Cathedral – came to know and love.
The reading
from Isaiah read like one of Joe’s homilies. All it needed was a reference
to sheep! It read like one of Joe’s homilies but it could also have been
his personal code of ethics, a kind of diaconal ‘manifesto,’ if you will.
“This is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly…setting free
the oppressed…sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and
the homeless; clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your
back on your own.” It’s all there, isn’t it?
That
particular passage from Isaiah was central to the Vatican II teaching on the
Church which made it clear that the call of the Christian is not to stay safely
within the four walls of the church but to go out and give service and witness
to the world. That’s a call Joe Curtis took very seriously. He took
it seriously long before he ever became a deacon and it’s for that reason, I
think, that when he did become a deacon he had no problem whatever reminding us
that care for the poor and the oppressed is a duty incumbent on everyone of us,
not just deacons. That is, in fact, how Joe saw his diaconal role: not
just to serve the poor in Christ’s name but to model for the rest of us the call
that, by our baptism, belongs to us all.
The reading
from Matthew’s gospel has its roots in Isaiah’s prophecy. Jesus knew Isaiah
backwards and forwards. When he inaugurated his public ministry, he got up
in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth and proclaimed Isaiah’s great prophetic
call and, not surprisingly, when he told his great parable of the Last Judgment,
he made it clear that our embracing of the prophet’s call to serve the poor is
the true measure of our faith and the decisive factor by which we will
ultimately be judged. And he goes a step further: rather shockingly –
certainly surprisingly -- he actually identifies himself with the poor, the
hungry, the homeless, the naked, the ill, the imprisoned.
Joe, at some
deep level of his very deep soul, grasped the meaning of that parable and made
it his gospel. I’m sure it didn’t come naturally to him to see the face of
Christ in the ragged poor person, the stumbling alcoholic, the professional
felon, or a host of other people from whom most of us almost instinctively turn
away. I doubt it came naturally to Joe to see Christ in any of those
people, but see him he did. And seeing him, he befriended him, and he was,
in turn, befriended. I can remember lots of times over the years when Joe
would share with me how proud and blessed he felt whenever one of his homeless
friends would come up to him on the street and call him by name. One time
it happened as he was going into the Rainier Club for lunch. His
colleagues were a bit taken aback, but not Joe. For him it was a tender
moment and a teaching moment. “As often as you do it to one of these, the
least of my sisters and brothers, you do it to me.” If we need any
assurances about how God has received Joe, we have it there.
The reading
from Second Corinthians spoke to me of the Joe who all his life long had to deal
with physical limitations. The polio that took his young sister Mary left its
mark on him, too, and as he got older, that became more and more apparent.
And it wasn’t something Joe found it easy to deal with, to say the least!
“How are you, Joe?” we would ask. “Older,” he would answer. That
became something of a mantra these last years as he grew older, weaker, more
frail, with thinner skin, diminished patience, growing frustration, a slightly
addled mind, and a fading memory. It was hard for us to see but even
harder for Joe to experience.
In his better
moments, I know he took comfort from St. Paul’s conviction that even though his
“outer self” was wasting away, his “inner self” was daily being renewed, and
that whatever affliction he had to endure was light in comparison with the
eternal glory God had in store for him: “glory beyond all comparison,” to use
St. Paul’s words.
I don’t know
how many of you are aware that as a young man, Joe had a desire to be a priest.
He actually spent some time in a seminary as a young fellow. But God
obviously had other plans. Joe was to be a committed lay person in the
Church and a family man; he was to have a very bright career in banking and
serve the corporate and educational community as a leader; and then he was to
cap it all off with nearly 30 years as an ordained deacon of the Church.
As one of the veteran deacons of the Archdiocese, Joe was to help define what
deacon meant, reminding prospective deacons that service at the altar made sense
only when it was grounded in service outside the safe confines of the sanctuary.
For Joe those less than safe confines were the streets of this parish, the
messy, sometimes smelly, sometimes scary streets of our downtown and our skid
road. It was there that he went but, like the disciples of Jesus, he seldom went
alone. With him went a devoted cadre of caring folks from this parish who
heard Joe preach, saw what he stood for, and signed up to go with him. The
streets of our downtown are better, thanks to him and them, and so are all the
people Joe served and who came to know him, love him, and call him by name.
Now it’s time
for God to call Joe by name. It’s not difficult to hear that, is it?
“Come, Joe, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, a stranger and you welcomed
me, naked and you clothed me…
Joe, good
friend, rest in peace. I’m sure that you’re with the Lord now and that
your welcoming committee was a whole bunch of the friends you made on the
streets, or at Matt Talbot, or Lazarus Day Center, or Martin de Porres Shelter,
or Operation Nightwatch. And I’m willing to bet, too, that when you met the Lord
he looked suspiciously and surprisingly like those friends of yours from the
streets, “the least of his brothers and sisters…for as often as you did it for
one of these…you did it for me.”
Father Michael G. Ryan
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