Growing up, when my Uncle Marty used to send Birthday cards, they were always the last ones I’d open. The ones from other relatives had money in them. His had prayer cards and spiritual art of saints.

He wasn’t always wearing his collar at our family Christmases and summer parties, so we knew him differently than many parishioners, I’m sure.  He’d tell really bad jokes and the same exact story about my Uncle Jim hitting his head on the basketball rim fifty times. Around us kids growing up, he had this effervescence and joy to how he lived his life. Truth be told, I used to never buy it. I thought it was an act. No one could be this holy.

The reality is: having your uncle as a Catholic priest gave him an aura. Or a halo. It made him seem superhuman, hard to get close to. Especially when I felt unworthy of the God he knelt to throughout my early life.

About a year or so after my father and his brother Tom died, I got to know the man behind all the holiness. For every Sunday up until the one he had a stroke, we’d talk on the phone for about an hour—from wherever he was to wherever I was. He’d offer spiritual guidance. We’d talk about life, my goals, my dreams. Even my failing love life. Everything. My uncle never got the chance to be a father himself. But for the last seven-plus years he was undoubtedly my fill-in Dad.

  

But before this special bond was born, I had to believe in what he was preaching first. Lord knows I didn’t. I remember sitting with him at a restaurant and I told him I didn’t know how to believe in God. I said I never felt like I could trust a higher power. He told me that’s alright, God will see through my walls even if I’m praying blind. He said that the trust part comes afterwards. Sometimes we don’t take a leap of faith until life brings us to our knees.

At that point in my life, I was on my knees. Lost. Empty. My dad had been gone a while and I think it’s not until people stop checking in on you or feeling sorry for you that you allow yourself to feel the big hole that’s been lingering.

My father was my best friend. He was my God growing up, and to my detriment. Because when he left this Earth, I didn’t have a purpose.

But the thing about my Uncle Marty is he was so convicted in what he believed. And there’s something about truth when you hold it in your heart, you know it with every fiber of your being, and you exude that, where there’s a power to that. So, I remember sharing my hopelessness with my uncle in this conversation. I had been modeling myself after my dad since he passed away because he was given three months to live with his cancer and he lasted 18 months. He was this changed man, stopped being stubborn and was grateful for every single day. I really wanted to be that type of man, but found myself running out of fuel that he had.

I knew my Dad’s fueling came in part from meeting with his priest older brother before he passed, so that’s what led me to my uncle Marty, who looked at me that day, firm as ever, and said something I’ll never forget. My uncle said, “if you think your father was who he was before he died and did that all alone by himself, that’d be ignorant.” He was forceful. He was fierce. And it landed. Gone was the Uncle telling corny jokes or having too holy of an aura. I was now looking across the table from my spiritual ambassador.

Ever since then I’ve been on a spiritual journey back to my true King. You see, I was angry with God. My uncle knew it. But he was convinced, without a shiver of a doubt, that he’d bring us together. I didn’t trust God. But I trusted Uncle Marty. He gradually chipped down my walls, all while holding onto Truth.

My Uncle Marty’s protection worked like training wheels on a bicycle to help me feel safe connecting to Christ. But it was never about himself. It was unwaveringly about Him (point to cross).

When you’re teaching a boy to ride a bicycle, you have to first see him riding the bike on his own without the training wheels, with foresight into the future. So when I learned of my Uncle’s heartbreaking death, I didn’t think ‘how am I going to ride without these training wheels?’ No, I felt overwhelmed with emotion and confidence from him seeing me riding before I ever saw it myself. And now I won’t ever stop riding.

When I’d pray with my Uncle on Sundays, he’d do this thing where he’d listen to me and then rephrase what I’d say or summarize it, essentially playing the part as a liaison to up above. At first, when he did this in our prayers, I was sort of annoyed. I’d be like, dude, I just said that. But he wasn’t doing that because he was worried Christ wouldn’t hear me. He did it so I’d know it got to Him. That the message was sent. I had my personal protective deliverer to reach God through him.

So, my first Sunday praying without my Uncle Marty I thought it’d be really hard. But I found Christ through him. And a pastor at my church in Chicago reminded me that my uncle was a symbol representing JC. That heaven isn’t that far away and, and my uncle will be able to help me more than ever now.

As many of you know here today, my Uncle believed in the spiritual journey whole-heartedly and truly treated this life as his time to serve his King before he met him in heaven. So, there’s a part of me that is happy he’s now with Him, along with his brother, my father, and his parents, my grandparents.

But I’d be remised if I said my happiness for him in getting to his final destination didn’t hurt because of how much I’ll miss him.

He was so supportive and proud of me. He’d talk about this nephew sports journalist he had to everyone he knew. He’d support every life move I made. He’d be there for every peak. And every valley. He also wasn’t afraid to take stances. He’d lecture me about politics I don’t agree with. He’d caution me to save my money to invest. Most notably, he’d push me to get closer to my mother when everyone else would caution against it.  He would always see things in the color Christ painted his heart with, not the black and white of society. And that’s inspired me to strive for color in my life now, too.

I used to joke that my Uncle and Carol and John should get a tour bus for their Lord Teach My How to Pray series because they were always traveling the country when I’d talk to him, in a different state each weekend, it seemed. Now I like to think of him on that tour bus, spray painted in radiant colors, with my Dad and their parents. All passengers with Christ driving.

So back to those Birthday cards. My last one I got from him was my favorite. Because it captured how well he knew my heart and the shackles around it. He wrote “I pray every day for you to start a family of your own one day. But be patient. God has a perfect plan. Everything will happen as it should.”

My Uncle Marty helped me see that I don’t need to wait for a love story to be the man God set me out to be. That I could see in color first with my King far before that chapter. That I didn’t need someone or something else to color my world yet.

On that same note, one profound memory I had with my Uncle was in my 20s when I was telling him how I didn’t see the point of being happy in this life if I couldn’t do it with someone to share it with. I told him, point blank and hopeless romantic as ever, life sucks without a “real” love story.

I paused, thinking I’d offended my Uncle who chose not to devote his life and not have a “soulmate.” Then he replied candidly, “that’s why I’ve committed myself to the greatest love story in history.”

He really loved Jesus. But only he knew just how reciprocal it was.

There are many professions where individuals heal hearts. But my uncle was a healer of souls. Here in New Orleans. In prisons with inmates. On his prayer series around the country. Everywhere he trusted there was color, especially when others couldn’t see.

He saw my color, inspiring to see my own. And my wounded soul was undoubtedly one of the ones he healed. Every move I make as a man is graced by the spiritual foundation he helped build within me. He’s gone from us. But his spirit and inspiration live on.