Homily At the Memorial Mass for Fr. Frank Prior
Alumni Chapel
August 21, 2006
“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, and you will find rest for yourselves.”
These words of Jesus, so striking and inviting, were wonderful for his disciples to
hear. Their lives were fraught with great uncertainty, tension, and bewilderment as they
learned what discipleship with Jesus would cost them. They longed for the ‘salad days’ of
sitting by the sea to relax and tell stories, or the instant respect Jesus commanded when
he taught or healed. They wanted ‘creature comforts’ life with a Messiah would ensure.
But it was not to be. They learned firsthand what the Master Teacher said and did,
namely, service, sacrifice, and generosity lead to a paradoxical place called joy. With
Jesus, the disciples discovered it was not intelligence, power, or prestige that would win
the day. No, it was to fall in love with the God as revealed in Jesus Christ, and to stake
your life on that God so well described by Isaiah: “Behold, it is our God who saves us!’
Discipleship with Jesus is just as challenging today as it was two millennia ago.
The call to love God, to serve others, to forget oneself, and to do it joyfully and faithfully
every day can seem overwhelming, beyond the grasp of mere mortals. We know Jesus
gave us a way, his way, but life on life’s terms can seem a proverbial yoke in this Gospel,
a harness that pushes and stretches us. It can seem more than St. Paul’s ‘momentary
affliction’ he described in the second reading. Even beasts of burden have their limits.
Jesus bore our burdens because they were borne of a deep, profoundly prayerful
relationship with his heavenly Father. It was not only what Jesus taught, but what he
learned in prayer with the Father that made him a Master Teacher. In life’s laboratory,
Jesus taught his greatest lesson of discipleship for us, his friends. He gave his life for us.
Frank Prior was also a master teacher. He was a modern renaissance man deeply
engrossed in the world of literature, as well as the Church’s liturgy; able to segway from
sports scores to Shostakovich; able to leap from the NFL to the BPO in the blink of an
eye. Frank Prior was a master teacher because he was a lifelong learner.
But like Jesus, Frank Prior’s life was more than learning or accrued wisdom. It
was not just his wisdom, but his witness that made him such an endearing and enduring
part of Niagara. Like Jesus, Frank was a man of prayer, the wellspring for his zealous
ministry. His prayer enabled him to walk with so many of us when we needed him most.
Like St. Vincent, he had pain for our pain, and reveled with us in life’s glorious moments.
In the 30 of his 55 years of priestly ministry at Niagara, Frank Prior showed us in
real time, in the flesh, what Christian fidelity and commitment comprise: presence. Like
Jesus and St. Vincent, Frank was present to all who sought him for advice and counsel.
He embodied Christian and Vincentian values because he lived them with all his heart.
For his 80 years on this earth, Christ and St. Vincent were Frank’s wisdom and witness.
The greatest witness of Frank Prior’s priestly life as a master teacher came not
where one would have most readily expected it--from the classroom, board room, or the
pulpit. No, in the crucible of sickness and suffering, Frank Prior showed us what it meant
to be an apostle, a man of prayer, a witness to the Paschal Mystery. From his hospital
bed, the doctor’s office, and the many places his illness took him, Frank Prior truly
embodied C.S. Lewis’ “Joyful Christian”. He accepted and endured what Paul, in the
second reading from Corinthians, called the “wasting away of the outer self,” because he
allowed his “inner self” to be transformed. It was not easy, but like Jesus, Frank squarely
faced this last and most difficult journey of faith and allowed himself to be led by Christ.
When thinking of a literary or scriptural motif for Franks’ life, one is tempted to
wax eloquent, as could Frank at a moment’s notice. But Frank’s status as a Jersey boy
(before they made musicals or TV series about such guys) and a son of St. Vincent was
his true cache. And so it is appropriate to sum him up with a quote from St. Vincent
which captures perfectly this man, this priest, this Niagaran whom we cherish:
“If God is truly the center of your life, no words will be necessary. Your mere
presence will touch hearts.”
May the God who was the center of Frank Prior’s life, and who called him into
this world, to the altar, to this campus, and home to his final dwelling in heaven, give him
eternal rest and peace. And may the memories of Frank’s wisdom and witness lead us all
closer to Christ and each other. His yoke is ended, and he is burdened no more.
Fr. John T. Maher, C.M.
Niagara University, NY 14109
Readings: Isaiah 25:6-10
2 Corinthians, 4:14-5:1
Mt. 11: 25-30