By FR. BRIAN HARRISON, O.S.
(Editor’s Note: Fr. Harrison concelebrated and gave the homily at the funeral Mass for Phyllis Schlafly held on September 10, at the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica. reprinted with permission.)
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Dear Friends —
Whenever Christian believers gather in God’s house to mark the passing from this life of someone we have esteemed and loved, the occasion is inevitably marked by very mixed emotions: there is grief, heaviness of heart, a sharp sense of loss and separation, but also hope, reassurance, and thankfulness to God. There is peace, joy that springs from our faith in Jesus Christ’s promise of eternal life, and even, I would dare to suggest, an awareness of beauty.
Beauty, you say? Can there be anything beautiful in death? According to Sacred Scripture, indeed there is: for we read in the Bible, and I quote, “Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of His faithful ones.” Perhaps that well-loved affirmation from Psalm 116 can serve as a focus for our reflections this afternoon as we say farewell, with reverence and in God’s presence, to Phyllis Schlafly. At this moment, in this Requiem Mass, we are not so much highlighting her prodigious accomplishments in public life — her brilliant academic career as a young woman here in St. Louis and at Harvard, her prolific authorship, her skill in oratory and in campaigning for what she believed in, in her zealous patriotic love for this great nation, and her tremendous impact on its public life, sometimes against great odds. Rather, we are recalling at this moment the fact that, underlying all of this, as the bedrock of Phyllis’ soul, was her simple, constant, unshakeable faith — the faith of a Catholic Christian. Seen in the light of eternity, the most important thing about Phyllis is that she was indeed one of God’s faithful ones, and so her death is something precious, something beautiful in the eyes of the Lord. Indeed, death, for such a one, comes as the final, finishing touch to a beautiful work of art — a work which in Phyllis’ case took 92 years to complete.
Moreover, these very moments right now, when we are gathered together in worship, surrounded by the magnificence of this great Cathedral Basilica, can also be seen as moments of beauty for all of us. For there is genuine spiritual beauty in a gathering at which all of our minds are quietly focused on the great and ultimate issues of life, death, and eternity. Why am I here? From whence did I come? Where am I going? Every funeral service brings to the fore these profound questions, because it inevitably reminds us of our own mortality — that we ourselves too will before long pass through that tremendous and mysterious portal. The passage from St. Luke’s Gospel that we have just heard reminds us that our own meeting with Jesus in judgment may come at the hour when we least expect it. All of us attending a funeral can be challenged by this: those of us who are believers are challenged to renew our faith commitment and perhaps to set in order our priorities and goals in life; those who are not believers can be challenged to consider again the possibility of a major “reset” of their core values and beliefs in the light of eternity and the message of salvation proclaimed by Christ’s Church.
When I was asked to preach the homily in this Holy Mass where we are honoring Phyllis’s memory and praying for the repose of her soul, my first reaction was a feeling of inadequacy. That’s because, while I have long been a great admirer of Phyllis Schlafly — and had heard her speak and had read a number of her books — it is only quite recently that I have had the joy and the privilege of getting to know Phyllis and some of her family members personally. Many of you here today have known her much longer and much better than I have. However, as I reflected about the significance of today’s service in the light of the issues I have are mentioned — the challenge and the hope of eternal life, the fundamental importance of faith in Phyllis’ own life, and the precious beauty of a peaceful death when it comes to a faithful child of God such as she was, it struck me that the short period of time that I have known Phyllis and her family is not really such a disadvantage in this context after all. And that is precisely because in God’s sight, the end our life is the most important part of our life. For it is how we die — our relationship with Jesus the Savior as we draw our last breath — that determines whether we will spend eternity in Heaven or in Hell.
More specifically, just a little over two weeks ago, as the end was drawing near, I had the joy of an extended visit with Phyllis and her dear long-time friend Kathleen Sullivan at Phyllis’ home in Ladue. During this visit I was able to hear what was to be her last confession to a priest, and to give her the sacraments of Holy Communion and Anointing of the Sick. Now, that was on August 25, which in the Catholic Church’s calendar happens to be the annual Feast of St. Louis, King of France, the patron saint of this great city and of the splendid cathedral in which we are now worshipping. We can truly say that this part of town is Phyllis’ spiritual home; for she was baptized and went to elementary school in this cathedral parish, and in 1949 married her late husband Fred right here in this cathedral basilica. These providential links between Phyllis Schlafly and the great and holy medieval warrior King who now from Heaven watches over this city, its churches and its people, prompted some further reflections. For St. Louis, unlike most canonized saints, was not a member of the clergy or a religious order. He was a layman who was at the same time, paradoxically, both a bestower of peace and justice in his own realm, and a crusading warrior, who died of fever during an expedition to reconquer the Holy Land from the Muslim Saracens.
So King Louis IX of France was a man whose path toward holiness and Heaven, in God’s plan, was not to be in the cloister or in the quiet of a monastery. No, Louis became a saint precisely in the theater of public life, of determined perseverance in the rough-and-tumble, the rude and harsh conflicts, of a patriotic life dedicated to love of God and love of country! Now, doesn’t that sound quite a lot like Phyllis Schlafly?!
I said at the beginning of these reflections that in saying farewell to Phyllis during this funeral Mass it would be appropriate for us to focus on her faith, on the deep spiritual underpinnings of her life, rather than on the specifics of her legacy in politics and the public affairs of the United States. But of course, these two realms — the spiritual and the temporal — cannot be neatly separated into two totally distinct compartments. That’s not Catholic doctrine! And Phyllis herself certainly didn’t separate them! After the success of what was probably her best-known political campaign in the ‘70s and ‘80s, she revealed that throughout those years of struggle, she and some close associates had all along been fighting with a secret weapon. And what was that weapon? The daily praying of the Holy Rosary, imploring the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary, to whom Phyllis had a deep devotion.
Indeed, during the very same historical period in which Phyllis made her main contributions to American public life — that is, in the half century since Vatican Council II — the Catholic Church has emphasized more than ever before not only that God calls all Christians to become saints, but that He wants lay men and women to fulfill this vocation to sanctity precisely in their secular, everyday calling in the world. Article 13 of the Council’s Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity sums up God’s specific calling to lay people by affirming that they should (and I quote) “endeavor to infuse the Christian spirit into the mentality and behavior, the laws and structures of the community in which [they] live.” My friends, I cannot think of a better one-line summary of Phyllis Schlafly’s mission in life than these words of the Second Vatican Council. She endeavored — with considerable success and often against seemingly insuperable odds — to infuse the Christian spirit into the mentality and behavior, laws and structures, of the great American nation in which she lived.
I will close these reflections by paying tribute very briefly to just two specific aspects of Phyllis’ public legacy which are particularly central to the Catholic Church’s social doctrine. One of these doctrinal issues that were very close to Phyllis’ heart, and a core element of her public activity, was the integrity of the natural family. She fought tirelessly to uphold and strengthen in our society the family as our Creator has planned it; that is, the family springing from the fruitful lifelong union in marriage of one man and one woman, including the distinct but complementary characteristics and roles that God has inscribed in our natures as man and woman respectively.
The second of these great issues is just as important, and indeed, even more fundamental to a Christian and Catholic worldview. We all know that the social and political initiatives which Phyllis spearheaded and organized touched the lives of countless Americans. But I believe we can truly say that one of these initiatives in particular also saved the lives of countless Americans! I am talking about then-unborn Americans who are now alive and well, thanks to Phyllis’ ceaseless combat against the scourge of abortion in the years after Roe v. Wade. Just last Sunday, Pope Francis, in canonizing Mother Teresa of Kolkata, said (and I quote), “She was committed to defending life, ceaselessly proclaiming that ‘the unborn are the weakest, the smallest, the most vulnerable’ . . . Mother Teresa was a pro-life warrior who spoke truth to power about the injustice of abortion and used her influence to spread the pro-life message.” Those words of the Holy Father about St. Teresa’s pro-life mission could be applied equally to that of Phyllis Schlafly.
In recalling Mother Teresa, I find it providential that Phyllis died on the anniversary of this saintly nun’s death, September 5, which will now be her feast-day every year. And it was the very day after her canonization. Now, please don’t get me wrong here! In drawing links between Phyllis and St. Teresa of Kalkota and St. Louis of France, I am not suggesting that we somehow “canonize” Phyllis during this Mass. She had her faults and failings, as we all do, and as a humble Catholic she would be the very first to plead that as we pray for her, and not to her! That, after all, is the specific intention of this and all Requiem Masses: the prayers of today’s liturgy reflect our Catholic belief in the harrowing reality of Purgatory — that mysterious purification in and after death which St. Paul alludes to in I Cor. 3 and which most of those who die in Christ will probably need to undergo before reaching the glory of Heaven.
No, in noticing these providential links between Phyllis and these two canonized saints, I am not suggesting that she necessarily shares their heroic sanctity — that’s something which in any case only God can judge. But I am suggesting that the Lord is thereby hinting to us that there is indeed a quality which all three have in common; and I think the best word for that quality is simply . . . greatness. Dear friends, and especially members of Phyllis’ family, I believe we are today praying for the eternal repose of a truly great woman — one of the greatest in the recent history of this country. Phyllis Schlafly was a great patriot, a great American, and above all, a great Christian and Catholic leader who strove to bring her beloved country back to those spiritual and moral roots that sprang — and will spring again — from the revelation given to our forefathers in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. With hope in the Lord’s mercy and His promise of eternal life, we can surely be confident that Phyllis, after her long and immensely fruitful life, will hear from Jesus those wonderful words that we read in the Gospel: “Well done, good and faithful servant! Come, enter into the joy of thy Lord!”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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