Saying Goodbye and the Power of Faith

I have been fortunate to call Steve Kutner my friend since we met at the tender age of 14. When he passed away just over a week ago after a difficult struggle with leukemia, I, like many others who cared for him, felt relief amid the sadness.

Steve was among a dozen or so of us who have maintained our friendship over the years. I like to think of us as a unique group of men of a certain age, although we’re probably beyond what is considered “a certain age.”

We are unique not so much in that we forged a strong bond during our formative years at St. Pius X Preparatory Seminary in Long Island, New York, but in that we maintained it over the years despite the miles that separate us from New Hampshire to Texas. As one of our friends once put it, “We knew each other in our pre-adult personas.”

Despite attending seminary school, becoming a Catholic priest wasn’t in the cards for Steve or the rest of us in our immediate group of friends from St. Pius.

We went into fields from education, business and psychology to law and communications. We married and had families, some divorced and remarried. And most remained committed to the Catholic faith including Steve. It was a comfort to him until the end.

One of our high school teachers and mentors, Rev. John Martin, celebrated Steve’s funeral Mass. In his homily he said that during Steve’s illness, he was asked by a family member, “Why is Steve suffering so.”

Father Martin’s response to the question surprised me, and I wondered if it was the same answer he would have given all those years ago as a young priest teaching at St. Pius.

“With all my years of theological training,” Father Martin, who is now in his eighties said, “I could only respond, I don’t know.”  He went on to say that on one of his visits with Steve during his final days in Sloan Kettering, Steve told him, “I’ve always tried to do the right thing.”

Father Martin asked all of us present to look into our hearts and recommit ourselves to always trying to do the right thing.  “God is within each of us,” he said, and he reminded us of the words of Jesus, “‘Whatever you do to others you do to me.’”

As someone who stopped practicing Catholicism some 40 years ago, I sometimes struggle with the concept of faith. Father Martin’s reference to the God within each of us resonated with my beliefs that have evolved over a lifelong spiritual journey.

I believe the essence of love and faith is recognizing and honoring the God within each of us, whether we are a different color or ethnicity, speak a different language, have a disability or disorder, worship a different God or no God at all, love a member of the same sex or opposite sex.

There could be no more poignant example of the power of faith and love when, at the end of Steve’s funeral Mass, one of his daughters who has Down’s syndrome reached up her arms to hug Father Martin, and he bent down and gently kissed her.

On that sun-drenched Saturday morning in a church in Valley Stream, New York, I felt God’s presence among my friends of a certain age, among Steve’s family, and among all who loved him.

Farewell old friend.  I will miss you.