Today’s Life-Line is:

This is not going to be your usual funeral homily, but Archbishop Hunthausen was not your usual bishop, was he? And I know: a homily is supposed to break open the scriptures and shed light on them. But Archbishop Hunthausen’s very life was a homily on those scriptures. His life was a courageous prophecy. His life was a Gospel. He put a human face on each of those Beatitudes we just heard.

~ The Very Reverend Michael G. Ryan

What more laudatory words could be said about a man or woman of faith than that their life was a homily on the scriptures, a Gospel in and of itself, and an incarnation of Jesus’ Noble Eight-fold Path? ~ DJM

Listen to or read the homily of Father Mike Ryan at Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen’s funeral here. I believe it is edifying for both those who knew Archbishop Hunthausen and those who did not and shows us not only what real leadership looks like but also  real humanness and real holiness.

Raymond “Dutch” Hunthausen served as the Roman Catholic Archbihop of Seattle from 1975 – 1991. Before that he was the bishop of Helena Montana from 1962 – 1975. Hunthause was the last living American bishop to have attended all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council.