Resurrection Mass for Edward T. Varni
Eulogy by Bishop John S. Cummins
December 26, 1997

I wish to express my sympathy to this parish community whom Monsignor Edward Thomas Varni served for so much of his adult life. I wish to express sympathy as well to his family, to friends who are here today and, in a special way, to his priest friends whom he cared for with a special devotion all of his life.

I. There is an appropriateness of our reading the sixth chapter of John today because at the heart of our life as community and of our experience of God's presence, especially at times of loss and of death, we gather around the Eucharist. Additionally, the Eucharist is inseparable from the life of a priest, and his was a long one. As the Psalmist says, seventy if you are normal, eighty if you are strong. I repeat the Eucharist is inseparable in the life of this priest.

II. The sixth chapter of John begins with the Eucharist not as a sacrifice, but as a care for human needs. Jesus feeds five thousand hungry people. We can reflect on how many appeared at the door of St. Charles in South Van Ness Avenue in the fifties, or in South City before that. We think of the educational needs of students with the school here at Most Precious Blood and the service that this complex of buildings provided while De La Salle and Carondelet were being developed. This was not without some controversy because there is a note from the Carondelet provincial saying happily, “The high schools are now independent and we can live happily for ever after”. There is an emergence, too, of two senior living attempts on the part of Monsignor Edward Varni in this parish, with a clear lack of encouragement for a variety of reasons from Bishop Floyd L. Begin.
But there are lesser known basic services. In 1948, Archbishop Mitty appointed Edward Varni to resettle European refugees long displaced after World War II. In 1968, after becoming Monsignor, he sent to Bishop Begin almost a thousand dollars received in gifts to celebrate his honor, in order to send it to refugees from Biafra.

But this sixth chapter of John moves to the other dimension of human needs, to the more spiritual hunger of the human heart. This part of the sixth chapter definitely deals with the Eucharist. It treats of feeding human needs only in the light of interpretation by the word of God. In 1939, when Edward T. Varni left the seminary, his rector at St. Patrick's Seminary described his preaching as “very good in all respects.” Like Jesus he was also straightforward. Even as we listen to this chapter of John VI there might be an edge. Perhaps this is best indicated by the motto he took in his retirement, “Ne scio, ni caro” (“I don't know and I don't care.”)
III. This chapter of John the Sixth, however, speaks of flesh and blood which is the Jewish idiom for the whole person. That flesh and blood, the person of Jesus Christ, is food and drink and it is necessary for sustenance from the life and the teachings of Jesus. In this holy season of Christmas, we are very aware that God teaches us through Jesus Christ and also forms us in our heart to prepare for that reception in faith of that teaching.

The emphasis on this chapter of John on the Eucharist is on personal communion, not in the community banquet that is also a very important dimension of the Eucharist.

In this light we can look back to that family from Visitation Valley. They belonged to Corpus Christi parish in the early part of the twentieth century, “Until it ceased to be a national Italian parish,” according to the seminary document. Then the family moved to Epiphany and stayed there the rest of their lives.

In high school, Edward T. Varni was exposed to St. Ignatius and the Jesuits. A classmate of his says, not surprisingly, he was bright. So did St. Patrick's Seminary in 1939, signed by the rector as “ability good, well applied.” He was remembered in high school days as quiet. Perhaps this was because he was not of the Richmond District or Sunset majority, or perhaps not the Irish majority, in those days at St. Ignatius. But the folks were in produce, from Visitation Valley and perhaps that is where his innate love of gardening developed.

But a significant part of his high school years is that he had a car, a Nash, for those of us who are older. Some remember that few had cars, but he had not just a car, but a running board and flat fenders that could hold as much as sixteen going to ball games.

In those years from 1924 to 1988, each young man at St. Ignatius would be asked about priesthood with, I am sure, some reasonable exceptions. Sixteen of that class of 1928 from St. Ignatius went to the Jesuit novitiate. Ed did not. He went to USF. There he was two years by himself, apart from the sixteen, and developed in a different direction and so, in 1930, he went to the archdiocesan seminary at St. Joseph's College and St. Patrick's.

IV. Here he is exposed to a new influence, the Sulpicians, with the lingering French discipline remaining of such names as Peltier and Redon. Again, there would have been clear consensus with the sixth chapter of John, that the importance of Eucharist remains in communion with Jesus, the personal encounter with the one who shares his life and the life of the father. He would remember as part of that teaching the encompassing spiritual formation that Jesus gives himself on the cross and in the Eucharist in order to share that life.

Ed Varni would have imbibed that teaching thoroughly. St. Ambrose in the fourth century wrote “When the Eucharist moves to the consecration of the venerable sacrament, the priest no longer uses his own language, but he uses the language of Christ…”

Thomas a Kempis, eleven centuries later in the Imitation of Christ, would say, “Great is the mystery and great the dignity of priests…When a priest celebrates, he honors God, he rejoices the angels, he edifies the Church, he helps the living, he obtains rest for the dead and makes himself partake of all that is good.”

Ed Varni was a priest thoroughly. St. Patrick's Seminary in 1935 would describe him as”character: steady, zealous, a bit temperamental, argumentative but correct and docile.” I would only draw your attention to the words steady and zealous.

His start in the priesthood, however, was not too steady. He spent one summer at All Saints in Hayward so that Monsignor John Silva could go to the Boy Scout camp in Occidental. He spent brief months at St. Martin's in San Jose. His first long experience was Sacred Heart in Oakland under the guidance of a tough administrator, Monsignor Robert Sampson.

Sacred Heart was Italian from Temescal and Irish. It was rich in Catholic life. When the archdiocese of San Francisco was divided in 1962, there were nineteen priests in San Francisco who came from the parish of Sacred Heart.

It was here that one noticed the continuous number of his priest friends. I would only mention the Archbishop of Portland, Cornelius Power and his other classmates. At Sacred Heart, however, that is when everybody noticed interest in young priests and in vocations. That interest was not exclusive, but there was a special care for those of Italian descent. He visited the seminary on regular occasions, especially in the warm weather, when he sat in the pool on his rubber raft and lectured us about the importance of the priesthood.
He went from there to All Souls in South City. He dealt with those years with great humor but was not so happy there and I felt he really felt the cross in his life. The cutting of costs of the famous pastor in that area was not so agreeable to Monsignor Edward. T. Varni.

He came to Most Precious Blood in 1955. He spent half his adult life here, thirty-six years as pastor. I would bring up the words zealous and steady.

He will be remembered for overseeing the buildings here; of school, convent, rectory, hall, church built and rebuilt. I remember him as answering the phone in the tradition of his contemporary, Monsignor Julius Bensen of Danville, and in the tradition of one year ahead of him, Monsignor Wade from Christ the King.

My first year I had the older pastors down and asked them the state of their parish. My first question to Ed Varni was, “why are you so good a pastor?” He moved to the edge of the chair to tell me.
I should not have been surprised. In 1968, Bishop Begin appointed him to the Catholic Voice editorial board with the words, “You are one of the outstanding priests of the diocese with your finger on the pulse of the community. I am sure you would be an asset to the Catholic Voice and a help to its editor.” There is no further documentation on this request.

He did, however, remain single-minded in his response to the sacrifice expected him of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. In 1973, Bishop Begin would write to him, “Are you satisfied with your present assignment?” He would reply with a laconic, “Yes.” In 1981, again the personnel board sent an inquiry, would you list your study interests, the workshops attended this year, sabbatical study desired. His answer was very clear, “None.”

In 1973 again, his understanding of the priesthood was in a few sentences. For example, “In service to the people at all times and in all circumstances.” That would be reduced a decade later to “Do what I am supposed to do in the parish.” But he lived beyond the parish. He was dean of the central Contra Costa County. He liked that. In our presence he remarked at the installation of a pastor, “I do a lot of this because the bishop is moving everybody.” He was on the building committee and in 1965 he sent a very serious report to Bishop Begin, who was attending the Vatican Council in Rome, about a visit to the property for the future of St. Stephen's Parish in Walnut Creek. He explained the rationale for tearing down the old shed. Unhappily, he changed about the building committee and perhaps this was both unfortunate and one of the regrets of his life because there was silence over the unhappy experiences of his last building in his late years.

Twice he was consultor to the diocese for Bishop Begin. He was happy with that. He served as chaplain, needless to say to the Italian Catholic Federation, but also to the Knights of Columbus, the Young Men's Institute, Diocesan Council of Catholic Men, and the Holy Name Society. In 1957, he was asked to be part of the organizing of the archdiocesan nurses' group. Even in 1940, he was nominated by the archbishop to be part of the San Francisco priests' choir under Edgar Boyle.

He carried a huge administrative burden. In 1977, there were 3,700 at Mass on Sunday. We are well aware that his confirmation program demanded interviews with each one by himself. In 1969, true to the Second Vatican Council, he developed both a parish council and a school board. He let his assistants move with the initiative. “We Care, We Share,” to the alienated and to the non-practicing Catholics.

V. But all of this administrative work took place in the context of the Eucharist.

St. Patrick's Seminary not only said he was with regard to preaching “very good in all respects” but added “not of the oratory type, however, but for instruction.” He was devoted to the Forty Hours. In 1965, he asked Bishop Begin if the devotion could be practiced for consecutive hours in the parish. He organized days of recollection for Lent within the church. He concelebrated Mass to the end of his days, according to the recommendation of the Second Vatican Council.

But in the building of churches, I would just bring your attention twice to his care for sanctuary renovation for building design. In 1974, he wanted a pipe organ which created controversy within the parish. With the great backing of his bishop, he provided that. He did not pick out statues from a table or a museum, but created an artist for both those and windows. Perhaps it is this artistic sense that made him so famous for his needlepoint in late years.

VI. Lastly, from John the Sixth, there is a notable line “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” That is verse 56. An observing commentator remarked, “Mutual presence and melding welding does not submerge the personality of another.”

No where is this more clear than in the life of Edward Varni. His independence was already alluded to. So is his Italian heritage with great friendships, with food and pasta con pesto, with Ed and great dinners. This moved to hospitality. At his 50th anniversary, he wrote to me one year before to say are having two dinners: “You are to be appearing for both,” with a postscript, “This is presuming you will not ask me to retire before then.” And when asked in 1973 by Bishop Begin what is his description of rectory life, he had one word, “homelike.”

That same human quality showed up in his illness. When he was discovered with a heart murmur, his first remark was, “I know I had a big heart, I did not know I had a loud one.” When he understood that the best treatment would be a pig valve, he asked to bring home the rest of the pig since he had already paid for it.
It is from this insight that grew, maybe from the Nash and his Genovese references, a reputation that he spent time and words to cultivate.

I looked over his first Mass. His archpriest was Father Thomas Power, Sulpician from the seminary, ascetic and possibly a saintly confessor. The preacher was Charles Casassa, a Jesuit whom he must have known from St. Ignatius and who went on to do great things at Loyola in Los Angeles.

But the deacon was Monsignor Thomas Cummins, the treasurer of the seminary. It was perhaps through that contact that Bishop Thomas A. Connolly, the auxiliary in San Francisco, would write to him the week he got ordained to say you will pay $20.00 per month on your $1340.00 debt to the seminary. Though those tuitions were $350.00 a year, his salary would have been $50.00 a month at that time. In May 1941, less that two years later, Bishop Connolly wrote to him that the debt was canceled because of his faithfulness.
When the parish changed its name after the fire here, I wrote to Rome. The permission was granted. The tax was $25.00. I felt the diocese could absorb that. He found about it and sent me the $25.00. After the fire, I remember here once saying Mass and we were walking across the yard. He remarked to me: “I was thinking of retiring, but they would never give the next guy a million dollars.” Despite his competence and his financial ability, he was a soft touch and even at the end of his life, like so many of the great pastors of this diocese, he occasionally got taken.

VII. The last point one would mention of the Eucharist in relation to Ed Varni's life is that the Eucharist is a pledge of future glory. He would know the Gregorian chant “Nobis pignus datur.” The tradition of the Church is that Jesus continues to give grace through the Eucharist after his ascension. That gift reaches its perfection in the eternal communion.

We must pay tribute how softly he went into that eternal communion. He was praised for his behavior as retired by those who lived with him, not just not interfering, but gently complimentary and supportive. We pay tribute to that grace today and for all his life and work among us.

St. Basil in the fourth century in words that would have probably been read to him during his seminary days, “The work of the ministry is an exalted one and leads to the kingdom of heaven.” There is no doubt that Edward T. Varni believed that with his whole heart.