"God is Here" a eulogy of simplicity, fidelity, and love

by Fr. Anthony Stubeda

"After twenty-five years one thing stands out as most important. After twenty-five years, more than anything else, I have learned this one truth. It has penetrated into my very being. And that truth is simply, God is here." Seven months ago Bishop Lucker, in his last homily to the people of the diocese, ended his years as the bishop of New Ulm with these words, and today I begin with them. God is here.

On this day our memories crowd in upon us, our grief wells up in our hearts and flows from our eyes, we long to touch, to see, to hear our brother, uncle, priest, bishop and friend. We are overwhelmed at times with the darkness of sadness, but shining in that sad darkness is that one certainty that will sustain, strengthen and gladden us. God is here.

Today we gather to reaffirm our faith and to remember how this one man’s life was an eloquent witness to the love and care of God. Our being echoes the words of the Book of Wisdom, "In the time of their visitation they shall shine and dart about as sparks through the stubble." The great and unimaginable beauty of this life of faith shines before our eyes, but burns our hearts as we reach out to embrace it and hold it close. But in our remembering around this table we reassemble ourselves and the terrible mystery of death and new life will yield us hope, comfort, joy and abiding confidence in the God of life.

The core of my remembrance today is contained in the words of the Father to Jesus in today’s Gospel, "You are my beloved son, in you I am well pleased." Bishop Lucker was convinced that these words were at the core of our faith. Faith was an experience of the overwhelming, merciful and completely surprising love of God poured out on us through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. Faith is a relationship with the mystery of a loving God. At its core faith is a living, dynamic and animating recognition and acceptance of the love of God. Faith is an experience, not a set of propositions to be assented to or rules to be followed. It is the relationship that holds us in being, and calls us to life. It is an overcoming of fear, shame and uncertainty by the mystery of the God who sent Jesus to give us new hope, new joy and new life. It is the Spirit calling us to build the Kingdom of God here and now.

Bishop Lucker’s family knows how this experience was expressed in his deep love, respect and joy in family life. He was the one to wait for before the party could begin. He was the center of celebration and the undivided attention and interest needed to make everyone welcome. His presence, like the presence of the God who loved him, made each of you see your dignity and worth. His attention to your lives and struggles was a sign of God’s interest in you. His passion for family history was a telling of how God worked from distant times to call each of you. He was your brother, uncle or cousin, but much more. He was a gift from God. In the words of a poem by his sister Peggy,

I would use words like saintly or holy

But of these I know he’ll disagree.

He’ll say he is what God

has made and it is his grace that

will determine what he is to be.

He loved each of you, and was constantly taught by you of the surprising ways that God leads us through life. In the end he longed to be held in the heart of your embrace as he took the last steps of his journey to God. Your faithfulness to him is a living sign of God’s fidelity.

His experience of being the beloved son of God called Bishop Lucker first to the priesthood and then to service as Bishop of the Diocese of New Ulm. He understood that this experience, this faith called him to understanding, to proclamation and to service. He constantly reminded us that the experience of the wonder of God’s love impels us to know him more deeply, to proclaim him fearlessly and to serve all people in Jesus’ name.

For twenty-five years he led the people of the Diocese of New Ulm in living the life of faith. He called all people to be renewed by recognition of the presence and love of God in their lives. He reminded all people that Jesus was their savior, their hope and their strength. All the programs, plans and hopes of the church were based on encouraging their experience of God’s love here and now. He constantly reminded us that Jesus wants to be at the center of our lives. The transforming power of God’s love is waiting to be poured out on each of us.

Bishop Lucker believed that this life of faith needed to be supported by and expressed in parish communities. He worked tirelessly to strengthen parish life, to remind all of us that the life of the church was lived in the small communities that gathered together are called the Diocese of New Ulm. His dedication to parish life led him to encourage a new understanding of pastoral leadership for the good of the church. It was his dedication to parish life that led him to appoint pastoral administrators to parishes. The strength of the church depended on the flourishing of the life of faith in parishes and we needed to trust that God would lead us into the future.

Bishop Lucker knew that the experience of faith sought understanding. It wanted to be expressed, taught and explored. From the beginning of his priesthood he dedicated himself to encouraging all people to study and understand their faith, to faithfully pass that understanding on to others and to continually deepen their commitment to the life of Christ’s mission. A fine theologian in his own right, Bishop Lucker knew that faith needed to be explored and expressed for the people of God. People hungered to understand the overwhelming experience of God’s love, and he worked without tiring to teach them. Anyone who ever sat on a committee or council knew that when he said, "Have I ever told you," we were going to be told again. I used to tease him that if someone asked how to make a salad, he was apt to begin with God’s creation of lettuce. He taught as Jesus taught, every day and always.

In this most rural of dioceses, Bishop Lucker knew that our understanding of God’s love was tied to and rooted in the experience of the land. The richness of our land was a reminder of God’s goodness. The uncertainty of weather and harvest were a call to trust in God’s mercy. The struggle to maintain the dignity and prosperity of family farms was the sign of God’s call to live justly, and the constant care of the land was a reminder of our duty to care for God’s creation.

Bishop Lucker also called us to remember that the experience of faith calls us to renew the face of the earth. This call was given concrete expression in his support and constant care for the Diocesan Mission in San Lucas Toliman, Guatemala. It was also expressed in his constant work for justice and peace. He called each of us to live our faith in the world. We were to be peacemakers in times of war, reconcilers in times of hate, God’s welcome to the stranger and alien, God’s justice for the battered, the forgotten and the marginalized. We are not allowed to forget that we are Christians when it was challenging and difficult. The true grace and gift of Christian faith is commitment to living the life of Jesus here and now.

Today we gather as a people around this table to give back to God what God has given us. We come to lay our brother, uncle, bishop and friend in the heart of the land he loved, and to entrust him to the embrace of the God who loved him. But we are filled with the mystery of God’s life and spirit. As we are strengthened in this Eucharist we are reminded that God does not take back his gifts. Every time a lector stands to proclaim God’s word, a mother prays with her child, a parish council meets to deliberate, a neighbor makes soup for a bereaved family, we harvest the richness of the earth on a family farm, we speak of reconciliation and not revenge, we will know that the Spirit of Christ so alive in this beloved son of God is still with us.

Our sorrow will give way to joy, our darkness to hope and this moment to eternity, because God is here.

What thought the tumult round me roar?

I hear the truth it liveth.

What thought the darkness

round me close?

Songs in the night it giveth.

No storm can shake our inmost calm,

While to that rock we’re clinging.

If Love is Lord of heaven and earth,

How can I keep from singing?

Father Anthony Stubeda is director of the Office of Hispanic Ministry for the Diocese of New Ulm.