The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1919-02-15
OF FATHER ETZEL

Wherever the hungry were fed and
the naked were clad and the lonely
were visited, wherever fetters were
stricken from the limbs of slaves, and
hope shone into the dungeons of earth,
wherever the barriers that divided
men were swept away, and the reign
of mercy was inaugurated, and the
whole current of mems thoughts was
changed, there the priests of Christ
passed by. The parts of earth that
knew not the blessings of their pres
ence remained, like the wastes of the
world where no dew from heaven falls,
bare and blighted. They lived and
toiled and suffered and died. They
are numbered amongst the nameless
dead. But just as the foundations of
some massive Cathedral are laid deep
and sure in the silence and obscurity
of the earth, so were the foundations
of the vast temple of the Christian
religion laid in the obscure and silent
sacrifices of the men whom Christ
called in the changing ages and sent
to carry His name before the nations.
And today, as in ages past, the
priests of Christ are passing by. The
world ever needs men who will not
let the name of the Saviour be for
gotten. How beautiful the priests
ministratiOns are seen to be when con-
trasted with the labors and pursuits
to which most men devote their days!
He stands in the shadow of affairs
pleading the cause of Christ before
His fellowmen, speaking to them of
God and the soul and eternity. He is
seated in the tribunal of penance pro-
nouncing words at whose sound souls
grow white again. He meets his fell
loWmen at every turn of the road of
life, with the sacramental power which
is the continuance of Christ's touch in
the world. He guards the tabernacle
in which Eternal Love abides upon
our affairs, and ministers spiritual
sustenance from the ciboriums Of
Heaven. He holds in his hands "the
pure host, the holy host, the unspotted
host, the holy bread of eternal life
and the chalice of perpetual saliva
tion," for it is only the priest of the
CatholicS Church Gg % continues 20
utter the sacrificial words which, in
one form or another, have from the
beginning formed part of divinely ap.
pointed worship among men. "The
ambassadors of Christ" "the dispens-
ers of the mysteries of God," are
needed today as in days past; nay,
today more than ever before, for the
world has grown prone to think more
and more of the things that are seen,
and less and less of the things that
are not seen.
We are assembled this morning to
take part in the last tender Offices of
the Church for priest who for years
was one Of us, and whom we loved
and cherished. AS we pay him our
parting tribute we can not but think
how unassuming and unselfish and
unsparing of his time and energies he
was. Humility BELTS the priest, of all
men-he comes to minister, not to be
ministered unto. With all his learn
ing, Father Etzel was pathetically
humble. Charity BELTS the priest
among men, greater love no man
should have. To Father Etze's warm
hearted charity the love that so many
bore him is the best witness. Zeal
is an essential virtue of the priest
hood, for every real priest has work
to do and is straitened until it be ac-
complished. Day after day Father Et-
eel toiled as does a man in whose
ears the warning ever rings, might
comcth when no man worketh." His
years from early youth were spent
among "the things that pertain to
God.'' There is nothing sad in the
closing of such life-there is moth
ing terrible in death save what life
| makes. For him who has lived for
God, death is not a going-away, but a
coming home, not loss, but gain;
he longs ito be dissolved and to be
with Christ" Father Etzels life was
full of toll. He is now at rest. He
| has gone from the shadows of earth
to the realm of light and reality upon
which the priests heart is ever fixed.
How simply and expressively Heaven
shall be no night there" No night of
ignorance, for there 1--WE see things as
they are No night of sin, with it's
prelude of the outer darkness. No
night of struggle with it's attacks from
without and within. No night of sor-
row that clamors for the dawn. No
night of death with it's pangs and
fears. From all these things, from
all that a priest has to contend
| against, Father Etzel has gone. He
has presented his life before the judg-
ment seat of God. We who revere
him for what he was, and who follow
him with our prayers through the por-
tails of death, hope. as we lift UP our
| voices for him, that he has heard the
| priests reward, the We'll Done"
which every priest Graves to hear
| from the lips of the Priest of Priests.