Funeral Homily for The Very Reverend Thomas A. Baima

By Rev. Emery de Gaál, Ph.D.

(Scripture Readings: Revelation 21: 1-5a, 6b-7 / 1 Cor 15:20-23, 24b-28 / Mt 25:14-30)

Your Eminence, Your Excellency, Father Rector, Dear Mrs. Judy Sassetti and Mr. Robert Sassetti Dear Mr. Chris Sassetti and Mr. Steve Sassetti, Dear Relatives and Friends of Father Baima, Dear Christian, Jewish and Interreligious Friends of Father Baima, Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

In this Chapel dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, Father Thomas Baima often presided as priest and preached. Here we entrust in gratitude the noble soul of your brother, brother-in-law, uncle, granduncle, our fellow priest, friend, and colleague Father Baima to God’s mercy. He was a vital vir ecclesiasticus, as Father Baima’s friend Monsignor Robert Dempsey so well put it. Father Dennis Spies observed he consistently strove for unity in the Archdiocese of Chicago, Mundelein Seminary, and throughout the City of Chicago, which he so much liked He and his address book were crucial resources for the Archdiocese of Chicago and the University. His address book is a “who’s who” of Chicagoland He contributed to fellowship and unity among fellow Christians, with the Jewish community, and the world religions. It is no exaggeration to say: Father Baima was one of the most resourceful institutional memories of Mundelein Seminary.

In a personal conversation, the Swiss Cardinal Kurt Koch, the Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, expressed to me how much he values Father Baima’s theological expertise and admires his diplomatic acumen: often on display in high level, sometimes delicate ecumenical discussions in the Vatican.

Today, the deacon of the Word proclaimed the parable of the entrusted talents. The Matthean pericope is one of the Basileia parables. It both announces and describes the Kingdom of God. When monks in Eastern Christendom call the monastic community to prayer, they beat a wooden board called Symandron with a hammer and call “Ta Talanta, Ta Talanta.” (cf. Matthew 25:14-3). The repetitive beating and calling Ta Talanta accelerate to a crescendo and come to a sudden halt These words mean: “Talents, hurry, hurry, make use of your talents and praise the triune God in liturgy.”

This call Father Baima heard throughout his life, and he responded to God’s call generously and wholeheartedly by bringing his talents to bear in order to build up the Kingdom of God. As Father Baima’s life on earth is complete and he enters everlasting life, we may imagine Our Lord welcoming Father Baima: “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your Master” (verse 21).

This gospel text has an antithetical structure – contrasting good and bad The gospel reading relates the parable of the three slaves. Could Jesus not have chosen experienced bankers? The bank keepers, the trapezitai in Greek, or mensularii in Latin, were experts in changing foreign currencies, depositing funds, and investing monies. The Jewish bankers, schulchanim in Hebrew, were much trusted in the Roman Empire. But Jesus chooses lowly douloi, slaves, nota bene not diakonoi, servants, wholly inexperienced in matters financial for his parable. Why?

Slaves possess no property. In addition, they have no legal rights. Paradoxically, Jesus gives no concrete order or commission regarding what to do with the talents entrusted. Rather,

Jesus gives them the freedom to dispose of the enormous amounts at their discretion. They do not own the profit achieved. Jesus Christ is the one who entrusts the riches of his kingdom to his disciples; it seems he is rather foolhardy and careless. He does not tell them how to work with his graces. He entrusts us the salvation of people. He never overtaxes, but trusts everyone according to his or her abilities.

The amounts we hear are quite enormous. 5 Greek Attican talents equal 30,000 Denars. One Denar is the equivalent of a day’s wage The first two men work with unimaginably huge sums, and they miraculously double the amounts. Josephus Flavius in the Antiquities (18. 157) relates how a released slave of Queen Berenice, Protos, lends King Herod Agrippa I 17,500 Drachmas and achieves a sensational return of 2,500 Drachmas, a 14.2% interest.

The two good slaves achieve a far better return than anyone else in the ancient world ever did Of such unimaginable magnitude are the rewards in the kingdom of God.

They had made clever use of their talents. Again, God does not deny freedom, but invites us to make free use of our God-given gifts. We discover that freedom is far from puerile, selfdetermined autonomy. Freedom is not a state as much as a relationship. Not accidentally is there a linguistic link in both Latin and English between responsibility and response. From eternity human existence is essentially and constitutively “called freedom.” The human being is posited inescapably into a relationality with God. Jesus calls us to make use of the talents entrusted to us, as a free answer to God’s preceding, unmerited charity Thus, the human person discovers that he is called to cherish eternal charity, the Blessed Trinity.

This Father Baima discovered while still a high school student and subsequently as a student of pharmacology. St. John Henry Newman memorably formulates: Cor ad Cor loquitur.

The divine heart speaks to the human heart and vice-versa.

Our Savior responds, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master” (verse 23) Human charity is always “lagging behind” divine charity. In the thrilling surprise of discovering that God entrusts to us a large treasure, we stammer with unspeakable joy in response. Only in the strength of the Holy Spirit can human beings articulate a response.

This means that we should not compare our achievements with those of other human beings, but rather should allow God to be the sovereign yardstick of our labors. In the strength of the Holy Spirit, we become mindful that we are unworthy slaves. Everything belongs to Our Lord Jesus Christ. We possess nothing. We are his possession. Human beings who are self-willed and independent from the Divine actually bury their God-given talents.

Ta talanta, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your Master.”

The priest Father Baima, as a carer of souls, strove to gently remind us to organize all of our efforts, thinking, labors, and leisure in such a way that they contribute to the Kingdom of God. We become truly Catholic by universalizing God’s kingdom - and not burying it. This was the inner movens, the inner motivation for Father Baima to engage people of all occupations and different Christian denominations and people of different religions. Ultimately, he hoped all people would not act like the third slave: “So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you” (verse 25). Au contraire, the risk, the stake, must be dared.

Father Baima did not impose Christianity upon his dialogue partners, but he did take to heart the words from the Book of Proverbs: “Give instruction to the wise, and they will become wiser still; teach the righteous and they will gain in learning” (Proverbs 9:9). We are entrusted responsibility for the Church and the world. Christians cannot simply bide their time on earth and ignore the call to follow Christ and the need to grow in acts of charity, especially in service to others.

Whoever follows Jesus Christ, whoever hears his word and acts accordingly, can count on the gifts of God to sustain him. The gift is the Holy Spirit. This Spirit urges us to feed the physically and spiritually hungry The promises of the Sermon on the Mount and the joy of resurrection permeate the Gospel. The Lord is not obliged to pay, to reward our efforts, but grants a generous share in his own being

The Church Fathers, such as John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Theophylactus, and Augustine, recognize in the slaves of today’s parable not people of low social standing, but ecclesiastical officeholders: bishops, priests, and consecrated men and women with spiritual gifts, who deliberately cast off all personal ambitions and property to serve undividedly Our Lord and Master Commenting on St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Polycarp of Smyrna observed in the second century, “He became good by serving a good master.”

Father Baima was an accomplished scholar in his own right. After studying pharmacology, he earned a licentiate from Mundelein Seminary summa cum laude, and a doctoral degree in sacred theology from the Pontifical Angelicum in Rome, again summa cum laude. He also studied at Oxford, the Kellogg School of Management, and Templeton/The Theological College of the Bahamas, where he earned a master’s degree in business administration.

Father Baima wrote or edited at least fourteen books and contributed over 60 scholarly articles. He delivered countless lectures in the United States as well as in the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Rome, and the Holy Land.

As a professor of theology, Father Baima was most interested in the areas of ecclesiology, ecumenism, and interreligious dialogue. He discovered in the French Dominican and peritus at the Second Vatican Council, Yves Congar, an important interlocutor. In the words of Avery Dulles,

For Congar, tradition (the ongoing life of the Church) is a real, living selfcommunication of God. Its content is the whole Christian reality disclosed in Jesus Christ…The Holy Spirit is the transcendent subject of tradition; the whole Church is its bearer. Thus, tradition is an essentially social and ecclesial reality; its locus is the Church as a communion. It is transmitted not only by written and spoken words but equally by prayer, sacramental worship, and participation in the Church’s life

Frequently the question is posed to which school a theologian might belong. Father Baima resolutely refused belonging to a particular school, such as Neo-Scholasticism or Transcendental Thomism. The vivacity of the Blessed Trinity is too overwhelming for a theologian to be pressed into a school, he argued. He was a systematician, but he deliberately eschewed a particular system. Father Baima belonged instead to a broad current of thought called Ressourcement, a movement that integrates Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, the Church Fathers and the Victorines, Bonaventure and Newman, Balthasar, Ratzinger and Lonergan, John Courtney Murray and Avery Dulles.

As academic dean of Mundelein Seminary, Father Baima encouraged the faculty to theologize with meditation and prayer as its gravitational center. He considered these crucial for both serious theological scholarship and effective teaching. He was personally interested in every single colleague. He encouraged the teaching faculty to be speculative and often engaged them in spirited discussions. He promoted their attending retreats and scholarly conferences and delivering academic papers. Annually, the publication of their academic books was joyfully, if not frolicsomely celebrated.

As vicar for ecumenical and interreligious affairs for the Archdiocese of Chicago, he was a valued dialogue partner and friend equally for Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, and Buddhists. How was this possible? Because he saw in every human being Jesus Christ present, the universale, concretum et personale, the second person of the Blessed Trinity. With gracious calm and affable wit, he interacted with countless people of various faiths, religions, and cultures. Why? The key is the Johannine term menein, “to abide.” Father Baima abided in the Lord through prayer and meditation. Thus, he was able to discover divine goodness reflected in all.

In unguarded moments, one could see him thumbing the prayer beads of an Eastern Christian kompuskini, a black rosary. Father Baima was bi-ritual, practicing both the Latin and Byzantine rites Sometimes he would recite by heart longer Eastern Christian prayers.

In significant ways, he facilitated a union between the Assyrian and the Catholic Churches. Father Joby Joseph, one of Mundelein Seminary’s newly ordained priests of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, shared for this occasion a prayer, the Hymn of Resurrection, in the Holy Qurbana of the Assyrian Church of the East. It is most fitting for the conclusion of this homily honoring the life and legacy of Father Baima:

“I have washed my hands purely, and I have gone round your altar, O Lord. You, Lord of all, we confess, and you, Jesus Christ, we glorify, for you give life to our bodies, and you are the Savior of our souls.”

Amen.

This homily was given in the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception, on the campus of the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary, on April 30, 2022.