Reverend Nicholas L. Gregoris, requiescat in pace

Editor’s note: Reverend Nicholas L. Gregoris, 52, of the Priestly Society of St. John Henry Cardinal Newman, passed away unexpectedly on August 21, 2024. A contributor to Catholic World Report, he had also written for Our Sunday Visitor, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, The Catholic Answer, National Catholic Register, l’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), and was the managing editor of The Catholic Response.

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Laudetur Iesus Christus! Praised be Jesus Christ!

Teddy and Angel, the Church joins you in sorrowing the loss of your son and brother; most importantly, she offers her prayers for the salvation of our beloved Father Nicholas. Thank you, Father Miara, for the hospitality of this beautiful church and for your decades-long supportive friendship of Father Nicholas. Thanks, in a most special way, to you, Cardinal O’Malley, for your most welcome presence and for your tender affection for our beloved from his boyhood.

On September 27, 1987, as I was vesting for the Sunday evening Latin Mass at Our Lady of Vilna Church downtown, a young fellow approached me, cassock and surplice slung over his arm, and asked, “Father, may I serve?” “It’s a Latin Mass,” I replied. “That’s why I’m here,” came the cheeky response. That was the fifteen-year-old Nicholas Gregoris. That was the encounter that launched us on a thirty-seven-year father-son relationship, which we now carry into eternity. Today, I understand much better, the grief of David for his son Absalom.

There’s a lot of continuity and fulfillment in today’s celebration. When we changed venue for our regular Latin Mass (in what Pope Benedict would style “the ordinary form”), we moved to this gem of a church, so that the young Nicholas served Holy Mass here, both as a high school boy and a seminarian. It was here that he offered his First Solemn Mass. And it was in this parish that Father Sakano invited the newly ordained priest to assist his first summer. The chasuble he is wearing as he processes toward the heavenly Liturgy is the very one he wore at his First Mass, and the form of the Liturgy we pray today is the very form which brought him and me together.

Our first reader today is John Bigus, a friend of Father Nicholas from grammar school; he witnessed John’s marriage and baptized his son. Our second reader is Sister Cora – a member of the wonderful Apostles of the Sacred Heart – who, in fifth grade, gave the young Nicholas his first hand missal.

The big elephant in the middle of our ecclesial living room begs the question, “How come? Why now? Why so soon?” The sage of the Old Testament attempts to give us a halting answer by acknowledging, first of all, “the people saw and did not understand.” He suggests, however, that God had enclosed this mysterious event in His plan of Providence. Our very dear Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman penned a reflection on such matters – a reflection on which Father Nicholas often meditated and on which it behooves all of us to meditate frequently:

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

The sainted Cardinal continues:

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still He knows what He is about.

And then he presents this rousing faith-filled conclusion:

O Adonai, O Ruler of Israel, Thou that guidest Joseph like a flock, O Emmanuel, O Sapientia, I give myself to Thee. I trust Thee wholly. Thou art wiser than I—more loving to me than I myself. Deign to fulfil Thy high purposes in me whatever they be—work in and through me. I am born to serve Thee, to be Thine, to be Thy instrument. Let me be Thy blind instrument. I ask not to see—I ask not to know—I ask simply to be used.

Indeed, Father Nicholas always sought “to be used” by the Almighty. He accomplished so much good, often despite the institution, not because of it. Which fact saddened him because he was a very “institutional” kind of guy – as all good Catholics should be. He accomplished so much good, generally unaware of his immense influence, exerted through his preaching, teaching, writing, wise counsel, and reverent celebration of the Sacred Liturgy.

When Catholics gather for a Mass of Christian Burial, they don’t assemble to “celebrate the life” of someone. They gather to lift up in prayer to Christ our King and Judge the soul of a sinner, who needs to be united to the once-offered Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross to His heavenly Father. Today we plead for mercy for a sinner, a title Father Nicholas was most ready to carry. We have yet further reason for confidence as we realize that this offering of the Holy Mass is taking place, precisely within the “Hour of Mercy.”

Saint Luke tells us that the sinful woman in his narrative was forgiven much because she loved much (see 7:47). That should be a consolation for us because we know that Father Nicholas was a man of many loves. As I detail his many loves, see if they are yours as well; if they are not, consider making them so.

He loved to reach out to people on their anniversaries, birthdays or name-days. It was his way of giving flesh and blood to Cardinal Newman’s notion of exerting “personal influence” to spread joy and gladness.

He loved the Sacred Liturgy with every fiber of his being. He took very seriously that plaque that adorns many a sacristy wall which urges: “Priest of Jesus Christ, celebrate this Mass as if it were your first Mass, your last Mass, your only Mass.” Which is why any liturgical aberrations caused him much pain and suffering.

He loved the truth. So, it was no accident that he chose for his ordination prayer card the line from Our Lord’s High Priestly Prayer, “Sanctifica eos in veritate” (Sanctify them in the truth) (Jm 17:17), a reprise of which we heard in today’s Gospel. That passion for truth made of him such an ardent apologist.

He loved the Church as the Mother Saint Paul tells us she is (see Gal 4:26). Attacks on her roused him to righteous indignation. The Church’s seeming downward spiral over the past eleven years was also a source of great grief for him.

He loved our Catholic schools. Indeed, he was always quick to assert that it was the loving example and faithful witness of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart that stirred up in him the gift of faith and that planted in him the seeds of a priestly vocation. He then shared that faith with his family in that great work of what I like to call “reverse evangelization.” Our schools touched him from boyhood to manhood at every level and made him the person of faith and the scholar we all knew him to be. In humble gratitude for his own Catholic education, he then taught at every level – elementary school, high school, college, and seminary – precisely as an act of gratitude for what he had received.

He loved languages, especially Latin in which he prayed and which he was always delighted to teach. He viewed languages as a window into the mind and heart of a culture, of a people. He was quick to greet strangers in their native tongue, to let them experience the Church’s welcome and her loving embrace.

He loved the Sacred Priesthood. He was proud to be a public witness for Christ and His Church, which is why the only lay clothes he had were for the basketball court or the beach. He boasted of being a “JP2″ priest and wanted to exhibit Saint John Paul’s joyful living of the priestly vocation, while the clarity of Benedict XVI was a model for his own writing and teaching.

He loved to play the role of a holy fool, providing light-heartedness and humor everywhere he went. I looked forward to the midnight-knock on my door every evening as I was ready to doze off to be greeted with some silly comment or joke. G.K. Chesterton ends his magisterial work, Orthodoxy, with a speculative thought: “There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.”

Father Nick wanted to give folks here below a little foretaste of that mirth.

He loved Newman as a scholar, a man of faith, a model, a mentor. Which is why he chose to write his doctoral dissertation on Newman, and specifically the Cardinal’s Mariology. That work of his has been acknowledged in academia as the definitive text on the topic.

And, oh my, he loved Our Lady and was imbued with a filial devotion to her, turning to her at the dawn of every day and at its ending. Just as Mary was present at the outset of her Son’s public ministry and stood bravely by him through the ignominy of the Cross, we have reason to hope that she was with her son Nicholas in his last moments, making good on his daily plea to her, “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” Is it mere coincidence that today “just happens” to be the feast of Our Lady of Czestochowa? I think not.

I have told you of his many loves; now, let me tell you something he absolutely hated – eulogies. I hope I have skirted around that sufficiently, so as not to incur his displeasure! So, let me balance the budget by recalling that, yes, our dear one was a sinner.

His most obvious fault was his Sicilian temper, which could get him into some trouble, but most often it was roused by his keen sense of truth and justice. He wanted truth and justice to triumph in a “New York minute,” which we could euphemize as a “holy impatience.” Not infrequently, the justice he wanted to see meted out was more in keeping with that of the Godfather than that of the Kingdom.

He could also be rather self-willed and stubborn. I think he took as a holy corrective the beautiful words of Cardinal Newman in that poem and hymn we have come to know as “Lead, Kindly Light”:

LEAD, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home—
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene—one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor pray’d that Thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path, but now
Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on,
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

We hope that the first “angel face” he beheld on the other side of the veil was that of his own guardian angel. Happily, we may say, the last article he wrote was on the guardian angels.

Conscious of his sinfulness, he was most devoted to the Sacrament of Penance, which he had received but a few days before his untimely death. Being a good penitent also made him a most valued confessor.

From childhood, he had heard the salutary warning of Saint Peter that “Death comes like a thief in the night” (2 Pet 3:10). That is the final sermon preached by Father Nicholas, the most eloquent of his life, preached from the center aisle of this church. That said, we should remember that the best preparation for a holy death and the best guard against what we traditionally call “a sudden and unprovided death” is the living of a truly Christian life. And thus, Saint John teaches: “. . . perfect love casts out fear” (1 Jn 4:18). It was that kind of humble confidence that made Father Nicholas choose as his priestly motto, “Diligentibus Deum,” the first words of Saint Paul’s assurance to the Romans: “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose,” as we heard in today’s Second Reading (Rom 8:28).

Already, as youngsters, we were encouraged to pray to Saint Joseph for “a happy death.” That sounds bizarre and even ghoulish to those outside the family of faith. However, if it’s true that Joseph died in the company of Jesus and Mary, what better person to lead us to “a happy death”? Interestingly, the young Nicholas graduated from Saint Joseph School in Little Italy and will be consigned to the earth at Saint Joseph Cemetery in Toms River, New Jersey. His life enfolded in the protecting and strong arms of the Foster Father of Our Lord.

The last book our prodigious author was working on was on the Holy Land. At the end of this Sacred Liturgy, we are going to enlist the assistance of the choirs of angels and martyrs to lead him into the heavenly Jerusalem, where he will see face-to-Face what he celebrated here on earth only in sign.

Yes, Father Nicholas was a man of many loves. In a most special way, he loved Newman; he loved Our Lady; and he loved the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. On our sacristy wall is a prayer of preparation penned by Cardinal Newman, which we pray before every offering of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. As we now approach the altar of this church, which is our touchstone with Calvary, let us make these words our own, as they were of our beloved Father Nicholas:

O Holy Mother, stand by me now at Mass time, when Christ comes to me, as thou didst minister to Thy infant Lord—as Thou didst hang upon His words when He grew up, as Thou wast found under His cross. Stand by me, Holy Mother, that I may gain somewhat of thy purity, thy innocence, thy faith, and He may be the one object of my love and my adoration, as He was of thine. Amen.