Forget Super Mario—Meet Saintly Mario

Mario Hilton of Michigan was a humble man whose holy life inspired so many.

Mario Hilton with Mother Mary Assumpta Long (second from left) and several other members of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist.
Mario Hilton with Mother Mary Assumpta Long (second from left) and several other members of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. (photo: Source: Jeff Randolph)

I first met Mario Hilton when I was a student at the University of Michigan, back in the early 1980s. My family and I lived in Ann Arbor, and we belonged to the same parish as Mario did—St. Thomas the Apostle—which is only several blocks from Michigan’s central campus.

One thing you noticed quickly about Mario was his smile, his friendliness and his joy, and if you knew for him any time you would realize that his joy was indomitable. And that for a man whose life experiences may have left him bitter toward others and angry at God, including because he grew up without a father, had a decades-long wait to become a U.S. citizen, and was denied his desire to pursue the ministerial priesthood.

 

Learning to Love at Home

Mario was born in Panama in 1924. His father died when he was just a baby. Despite that loss, Mario gratefully recalled the way his mother raised him and his sister. “She would sit down with” us “about once a month and teach us about discipline, being gentle, and respecting others,” Mario said. “Because she was a disciplinarian, I didn’t get to do things that my friends did. If I went to a movie, for example, I had to be home by nine o’clock.”

His mother’s loving oversight paid off.

“The gang that I was part of would steal food that store owners and vendors put out on display,” Mario said. “But I never stole any because of what my mother taught me. I would leave when they started to do that. My mother kept me out of a lot of trouble and probably jail.”                                  

Mario also credited his Mom—and the Good Lord—for his engaging personality and enjoyment of people. “My family was always open to people,” he said. “And I just followed what they did. You could say that I inherited it.”

Mario was the same age as my beloved father, and Dad was one of Mario’s many friends. Who wasn’t?  Many people—Catholic and non-Catholic—loved Mario. And even if someone strongly opposed Church teaching, it’d be real hard to hate Mario because, like Christ, he genuinely loved his enemies (cf. Mt. 5:43-48).

 

Faithfully Embracing the Cross

Dad and Mario both served in the U.S. Armed Forces, Dad in the Army Air Corps during World War II and Mario in the Army just afterward. Mario’s infectious joy would prove helpful, such as persevering when he was denied citizenship, despite having served in the Army. An official in St. Louis told him he would have to return to his native Panama to process his application. Mario declined for fear he would not be able to reenter the country. (Several decades later in 1986, some of Mario’s friends along with Congressman Carl Purcell [R-Plymouth] collaborated to right that wrong, and meanwhile Mario always paid his taxes.)

Not having his U.S. citizenship explained why Mario was always happy to meet and learn about people, but for a long time was reserved in talking about himself. He didn’t want to jeopardize his U.S. residency.

In the interim, Mario had moved from South Bend, Ind.—where he first arrived in the U.S. and then returned after his discharge from the Army—to Ann Arbor. He served as a waiter for 19 years at the Towne Club, where Ann Arbor’s elite would dine and interact in years past. And during that time he also established himself as a fixture at St. Thomas, participating in daily Mass “back when hippies and the Jesus movement were popular,” as Mario was wont to say with a smile.

A subsequent pastor, Msgr. Robert Lunsford, who oversaw the parish from 1976-87, remembered how Mario—who lived across from St. Thomas for many years—opened the church in the morning most, if not all of the time, during his tenure. “Mario would set up the altar for Mass, pray Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours with a group of parishioners, pick out and lead a hymn and serve Mass, often doing the First Reading and Psalm Response.”

“His fidelity to this and the fact that he was a holy man prompted me to ask Bishop [Kenneth] Povish to formally institute him as an Acolyte.” The Bishop “agreed and came to St. Thomas to do it at Mass July 16, 1983.”

“Another fact, maybe not so well known, was that we had a food box in the vestibule of the church where people could leave non-perishable groceries for the poor,” said Msgr. Lunsford. “Almost every Saturday morning there would be two large, full grocery bags left in the box. I always wondered who left them, and had a suspicion that it was Mario, but didn't know for sure until I accidentally saw him doing it one Saturday.”

Mario was known to help in other ways, including one time giving his coat to a homeless person who needed it more. Mario also ministered to many others through his longtime friendship with Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan. Monaghan hired Mario to work in his executive dining room at Domino’s Farms in the mid-1980s, subsequently renaming it “Mario’s,” with Hilton serving as the maître d’. When Mario’s closed in 1996, Hilton became the sacristan of the chapel at Domino’s Farms, which offers 22 Masses each week and where Mario served until his retirement in 2011

Serving as sacristan was a blessed culmination to Mario’s career, because he told me he had been refused entrance to a seminary long ago because of racial reasons. When I learned that, I told Mario that I would be happy to contact Bishop Carl Mengeling, who was then Bishop of Lansing. Perhaps Mario could be ordained a “simplex priest” at his advanced age, in the manner of the great Blessed Solanus Casey, who served the Church in nearby Detroit. Mario was appreciative but declined. Being paid to do something he loved, serving the Good Lord and his people at the chapel, was itself an abundant blessing (cf. Jn. 10:10) and a sure sign of God’s fidelity (cf. Jn. 8:31-32).

 

Preparing Himself and Others for Heaven

Despite his infirmities, Mario persevered in loving his Lord Jesus and his fellow disciples. In that sense, he never retired.

“Mario was a gentle reminder for the entire Parish of St. Thomas the Apostle of why we were put on the earth and who ought to be most important—Almighty God!” said Father Bill Ashbaugh, St. Thomas’ current pastor. “Mario lived as a servant of God and died as His faithful servant. He loved our Blessed Mother and stayed very close to her as a Third Order Carmelite. No wonder God called him home on the Feast of Our Lady of Mt Carmel (July 16).

“He was buried on the Feast of St Mary Magdalene—again God’s providence,” Father Ashbaugh added said. “She was the one who sought the Lord—who was with Jesus in the hard times—going all the way to the Cross. She was the one who was at the empty tomb—before dawn—to anoint his body. You could not pull her away from Jesus!

“The same could be said of Mario Hilton!” said Father Ashbaugh. “Mario was here every day before the crack of dawn at the church, waiting for the door to be opened because his Beloved was here. He often would stay up all night with Jesus when we had 24 hours of adoration, and when he got ill, he would still come around 3 a.m. and stay through the remainder of the night until morning Mass at 9 a.m. He was present to the Lord and brought Jesus’ presence to all of us!”

“Jesus said,” Father Ashbaugh concluded, “‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will have their fill.’  Mario hungered for God—and knew that it was Jesus alone who satisfied. He believed Jesus was who He said He was: ‘I am the Bread of Life! Whoever eats this Bread will live forever!’ Mario was and remains one of the pillars of St. Thomas the Apostle Church.”

Mario Hilton would want us to pray for the repose of his soul, as we should for all of the faithful departed. But like many others around Ann Arbor, I wouldn’t be surprised if one day the Church canonizes him a saint.