“As it had to be, the majestic high Mass on Thursday for Cardinal Avery Dulles at St. Patrick’s Cathedral was an occasion of splendor and vivid remembrance for a soft-spoken cardinal who — though he wielded intellectual and moral influence as a Jesuit, a theologian and a writer — once said, ‘I’m not particularly made for ceremonies.’” 

So begins this New York Times article about yesterday’s funeral Mass for the late cardinal — a man who remained remarkably humble in spirit throughout his long life despite being born as a scion of one of America’s great families and dying as a prince of the Church.

The Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Edward Egan of New York.

“Cardinal Egan fondly recalled the years he had known the tall, self-deprecating Cardinal Dulles, whose angular face was often likened to that of a beardless Abraham Lincoln,” the Times reported.

“He said that Cardinal Dulles knew well the suffering of ordinary parishioners. Indeed, during the last phase of his life, due to the recurrence of the severe polio he contracted while he served in the Navy during the Second World War, Cardinal Dulles ‘was confined to a wheelchair and rendered unable to speak,’ Cardinal Egan said.

“After the Mass, the wan late-afternoon sun, which had returned for the day to Manhattan, made the church dignitaries’ miters and gold-threaded vestments gleam as the procession escorted the coffin down the steps to Fifth Avenue from the warm cathedral into the brisk afternoon and a waiting hearse. And spontaneously, the crowd of hundreds at the bronze doors applauded.”

— Tom McFeely