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Necrology (Villanova Province)

Necrology (Peru, Spanish)

Homily at the Funeral of Fr. Appicci

Reflection from Peru

Father Richard Appicci, OSA
1 February 2007
A Reflection


First the Poor

“The poor are the rope God gives us, to pull us up to heaven.”  
St. Augustine

 “We are all pilgrims”  St. Augustine was fond of saying.  As he often told his church filled with the many faithful that came to hear him, we are all in a process of growth, as individuals, as communities of faith, and in the most profound sense, in our moving forward (or perhaps one could also say “back”) to God.  In that natural process of life we, as the famous riddle of the Sphinx used to say, begin on four legs (crawling as a baby), pass to two legs (walking) and end on three legs (walking with a cane).  And then, we enter the final stage, which is our fulfillment en Christ. 

And so it is with sadness, but at the same time great thanks, that we say a type of farewell (hasta luego) to Fr. Dick Appicci who has served for close to 20 years as director of our mission office.  After such a long tenure, one naturally becomes attached to the picture, the writing style, and the “good news of love”  which radiated out of his pen and computer each time a newsletter of the Chulucanas mission associates was drawn up.  Very likely we even came to identify the mission with the person who has been its more important and public spokesperson and so it naturally seems a little strange and hard to fathom that this won´t go on forever.  But alas, we know it doesn´t go on forever, and we all cross that threshold on the day when we enter the eternity of God´s peace.  That happened with our good friend, Fr. Dick Appicci on Feb 1, 2007.  We who loved him and remain here, on this earth, must continue to move forward as pilgrims since the mission, in the end, as it was in the beginning, is not of one person, but is the mission of Christ and his church.

Fr. Appicci´s, after a difficult year long struggle with cancer, finally handed his spirit over to the Risen Lord.  We can only pause and give a prayer of thanks that he, for so long, which such enthusiasm and grace, lead this effort for those who were always the apple of his eye… the poor.

In 1968, as a vice-president of Villanova University, Fr. Appicci decided to leave and give his life to the poor in Chulucanas.  He dedicated the rest of this priesthood and religious life to that cause, working for almost a quarter century in Chulucanas, and then assuming the task of raising funds to keep the mission going as director of the mission office.  All of those years were simply a faithful response of the church that asked for its religious and all of its members to have a preferential love for the poor.

In keeping faithful to this call Fr. Appicci dedicated great efforts to help address and combat the causes of poverty.  He was eager to try any experiment to see what could work to help even a handful of people overcome the ravages of a poverty that means they must live on less than $2 a day.  He lobbied for large governmental programs such as fighting for greater irrigation by the redirecting of rivers, and he promoted small programs such as more fuel efficient stoves in single family homes, all towards the cause and mission of helping the poor.

He was, however, a priest of the church.  And if that mission among the poor made him half a social worker, it did not lead him to lose sight of the cause that brought him to leave his university post and go into a society where few schools existed and illiteracy was rampant. What motivated his life was Christ, and he wanted to announce his “good news” to the poor.  Thus he reached out to all through his sacramental ministry, through the masses he celebrated in the smallest most remote chapel made of only hay and mud, in his preparation of couples to build stronger matrimonies, in his outreach to the youth and catholic education.  All of these efforts pointed to what Pope Paul VI would ask the church to assume in its evangelization efforts, namely an integral approach to help the human person on every level of his or her existence.  Fr. Appicci epitomized this integral approach to evangelization.

Though it all, he never lost sight of the one guiding principle… first the poor.  Begin with the poor… that could easily have been his model.  In our consumer oriented world it sounds like a cliché and in fact the poor usually occupy the last place in great debates that now engage the nation.  But for Fr. Appicci, the challenge was always to put them in the first place.  When the civic leaders of Chulucanas wanted him to use his influence with the government as a respected priest, to help bring electric light to Chulucanas, he was eager to assume the mantel.  But there was one condition he placed—first the poorest.  If we were to ask for light, the first posts and service had to go to the poorest areas of town, and the last place would be those living around the main square who already had some, although poor quality light.  And so it was, probably in one of the few or only examples of its type in Peru, or perhaps elsewhere, the light came first to the poor and their part of town glowed long before it reached the center.  Perhaps that was Jesus´ plan as well, as the Light of the World came first to the stable of Bethlehem and only later reached the capital of Jerusalem.

The mission of the Church moves forward and the preferential love to the poor still remains the call of Christ.  So we the missionaries in Peru give thanks to God for the example Fr. Dick Appicci has given to us all these years.  It has indeed been a blessing to us all.  We pray that he continues to spread his message of love for the poor by inspiring us all to make his motto our own.

If we can summarize the legacy and example of Fr. Dick Appicci in a few words, I would certainly be an invitation to us all to be missionaries of Christ´s love to the outcasts and the poor.  As he would say: “Always make the poor the first, not the last.”

John J. Lydon, OSA
Mission Superior