Abbot Michael Brunner offered this homily on January 21, 2025, at the Mass of Christian Burial for Fr. Paschal Scotti, O.S.B.
Mass of Christian Burial for Fr. Paschal Scotti“ What are you reading now?” That was Fr Paschal’s favorite question, which he asked of any guest in the monastery, and of all us monks. He knew it was a good question, one we would do well to ask ourselves every day. A good question, the answer to which someone gives tells you a lot about that person. Father Paschal himself was a voracious reader, always with a book in his hands or under his arm, and seemingly a different one every day. He was a man, a priest, a monk, with many interests and gifts which he enjoyed expanding and sharing with anyone and everyone. We all know that each day we each come one day closer to our end. Father Paschal knew that his final day was approaching. In fact the very day he died he told several people his death was imminent. And he was right. So Jesus finally extended his invitation to a persevering Monk and Priest and Teacher: “Come, you blessed by My Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” In our faith we can take great comfort in knowing this, because we know, despite any weakness and failings of his, we know the good work he did in life right to his last moment, last Wednesday evening, sitting right there in his seat in choir, praying with us. We are grateful for the sixty-three years he lived among us. We must be thankful for all that he gave us in that time and for all that he allowed us to give to him.
Father Paschal has left us at a relatively young age. In our monastic community he was one of the younger monks. We just heard from the Book of Wisdom: The just man, though he die early, shall be at rest. For the age that is honorable comes not with the passing of time, nor can it be measured in terms of years. So we are gathered together today to say farewell for now, to entrust to God and to celebrate the life of someone who has slid past us out of this world, into the fuller life of God’s Kingdom in we which hope to share someday, but no doubt we hope not too soon. Our life is a such a mystery to each of us, a gift of God that comes upon us unawares as our consciousness springs to life when we are little children, filled with wonder. Father Paschal managed to keep a good deal of that wonder, which he happily shared with his students. But all we really know is that one day this life gift will return to its source, the Giver of Life. So living to a ripe old age is in itself no assurance or mark of success in this enterprise of life. Nor are our accomplishments, successes, awards or books we write. And fortunately for us our sins and failings do not mean we have failed in life. But rather for any person, of any age, real success comes from understanding and embracing truth through trust in God, and living with Him in love, and sharing that love and truth with others in justice. In other words, success is in living faith, hope and charity. By this measure then, today we celebrate, the culmination of a life journey on a singular road in one direction, always advancing in love of God, and so, a successful life.
Father Paschal’s patron saint was Saint Paschal Baylon, not one of the better known saints but well known to Father Paschal and whom he took as a model. Saint Paschal was a simple shepherd who wanted to live a life of prayer. So he became a Franciscan friar and a prodigious ascetic, fasting from food and sleep, refusing to wear shoes even in the snow. He was deeply devoted to Jesus in the Eucharist. But he never became a priest and was no scholar. Father Paschal too was a man of prayer, and also an ascetic, eating one meal a day and sleeping only a few hours; and he was deeply devoted to the Eucharist. And although he was very much a scholar, he used to scholarship to come closer to God and bring others closer. We have heard from many alumni of the School and others recounting his acts of kindness, his interest in their well-being and his positive impact on their lives in his forty years as a monk, and many are with us here or on our live-stream this morning. Br. Joseph Byron paints Fr. Paschal’s casket, built by Luis Raposo and Peter Lambert of the school staffForty years. That number always rings a bell in my head, because when I went home to celebrate my parents 40th wedding anniversary, my mother took me aside and said to me, “I’m so glad you’re waiting to get married. Marriage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” That took me aback, but I suppose nothing in this world is all it's cracked up to be, even though her remark only reflected a momentary disagreement with my father. I don’t know what Father Paschal ‘s expectations were when he entered the monastery here and began teaching, but over time everything changes. In his forty years here, this monastery and school changed. There were more monks, monks lived in dorms, no girls, less sports. And some of those changes he did not like. An alum from forty years ago who was with us last week told us that this was the first school he attended where it was cool to be smart. Fr. Paschal worried that THAT was changing. Nevertheless despite the fact that this institution and many of us here did not live up to his expectations or his standards, Father Paschal, like my mother, was faithful to his vows and did his very best every day to live up to God’s expectations and to live his life as a holy monk. He did it for God and for you. As he said just before leaving here briefly to try life as a hermit, the best thing about Portsmouth Abbey school is the students.
If you listened to Father Paschal's homilies you will have heard him hammer home two important points that he would very much want you to remember. The first is that your soul and the spiritual life is very real, not some myth or fairy tale. In fact they are the most real realities of existence. Our happiness depends upon our care and nourishment of this spiritual life. Doing so will give us power to live a good, meaningful and productive life in this world. And the second point is that God created you for greatness and that you must work diligently to attain it. At all costs, avoid mediocrity. Those words we heard moments ago sound just like Fr. Paschal: For the witchery of paltry things obscures what is right and the whirl of desire transforms the innocent mind. So the Eucharist we celebrate today for Father Paschal is a living and perpetual reminder that death is not the end but a new beginning. By his works Father Paschal sowed seeds of goodness that have sprouted, grown and lived on in his students, in his friends, in the people of this Portsmouth Abbey family and the other lives he touched.
At this point in time, so close to when he left us, our gratitude for his life and his impact on ours is naturally tinged with some sadness. But just as seeds planted in the ground take time to sprout and grow. It takes time for our untinged joy in having shared life with Father Paschal to blossom alongside that gratitude. But it gives us great hope for our own lives that despite any weaknesses or failings, one man can do good and leave such a lasting legacy in other lives by being simply a good, persevering monk, by doing what God called him to do. And that is something we all can do in whatever vocation we have, in whatever God calls us to.
If our Christian faith tells us anything, it tells us two important things. One is that Father Paschal’s spirit, his soul, is very alive, and no longer subject to time and space; his very spirit lives on with us, can help us and can be helped by us. This is the meaning of the communion of the saints. We pray for him and he can pray for us. And secondly, that after we have passed over the horizon of death as Father Paschal has, we shall see him again and rise together as Jesus himself rose from the dead. St. Francis de Sales said it so succinctly: Friendships begun in this world will be taken up again, never to be broken off. So, in the face of this great mystery of death, we too must rely on faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love, and love never fails. So let us console one another with this knowledge. Until that day when we meet him again, we should do what Jesus asked us do to remember Him. We celebrate this Mass, this spiritual banquet and sacrifice in memory of Him. Whenever you gather as his friends and his family, remember Father Paschal. Whenever we gather as Portsmouth Abbey, we will remember Father Paschal. He will still be with us and you, watching, caring and loving in his own way. We must remember and celebrate his life, and as with the Lord Jesus, remembering what he has accomplished with his love, and keep building upon it.
Now I ask the student’s indulgence. When I spoke to them on last Thursday morning I read these appropriate words, preached in St Paul’s Cathedral, London by Rev. Henry Scott-Holland in 1910, words that I can well imagine Father Paschal himself speaking to us today: Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away to the next room. I am I and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, That, we still are. Call me by my old familiar name. Speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without effect. Without the trace of a shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same that it ever was. There is absolute unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you. For an interval. Somewhere. Very near. Just around the corner. All is well. Nothing is past; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before only better, infinitely happier and forever we will all be one together with Christ.
And so today we celebrate the culmination of a rich, full life. And at this Eucharistic Banquet, we raise a spiritual toast, to life and to love, to faith and fidelity, to Father Paschal Scotti! May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace and joy. Amen.