June 11, 2014
The following is an adaptation of remarks made at the Prayer Service for Father Barry Gross held in the Kane Center on June 10, 2014.
A week ago last Friday, with the end of the school year finally in sight, Father Barry, Campus Minister Tony Tamberino and I were seated together in a booth at Urban Bar-B-Que. We were tired. The run from January to June is always taxing; our unusually frigid and disrupted winter made this year especially tiring. Instead of shop talk, we relaxed over a couple of beers. We chatted about playing bridge and poker, the merits of regular versus cryptic crosswords, Barry’s love of being able to say Mass and minister to the Sisters of Holy Cross. Simple pleasures.
There are so many things we will miss about Barry: the way he shuffled down the aisle of the Chapel in his Birkenstocks; the way he really bristled if the student body got too social during Mass; the way he would gently clasp the arms of the students when commissioning them as leaders; the way he tested his vocal skills as he climbed the scale for the Doxology before the great Amen; the way we could tease him about how long he was going to speak. At his last Commencement, less than three weeks ago, Barry ascended to the pulpit at the Basilica to start his homily--he just knew that half his colleagues seated behind him were putting him on the clock. Hoarse as he was that day, Barry summoned his strength and persevered to deliver a beautiful farewell message for the Class of 2014.
I will miss, all of us will miss, those things. They remind us that the essence of Father Barry, the joy of his life, was found in being a priest. It was what he did and who he was. Perhaps what I will miss most would come at least four times a week in Barry’s first words at morning Mass. Even when he was feeling worn out, once he was ready, he would look down, then he would look up, open his arms wide, and smile at us, and say it and mean it, “My dear friends.”
Father Barry Gross. Our priest. Our friend.