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WILKES-BARRE — Hundreds of mourners packed St. Nicholas Roman Catholic Church on Thursday morning, joining Bishop Joseph C. Bambera of the Diocese of Scranton and about 30 priests and deacons for the funeral Mass of the church’s beloved pastor emeritus, Monsignor Joseph G. Rauscher, who had served the parish in active ministry for 27 years.
“He has no trouble breathing. He has no trouble seeing. He has no trouble walking,” Monsignor Walter Rossi told the crowd in his homily, offering the comforting thought that Rauscher is no longer suffering any of the physical ailments that plagued him in recent years.
Rossi, a former assistant pastor at St. Nicholas Church who is rector of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., praised Rauscher as a “builder of bridges” and gently reminded people of the pastor emeritus’ tendency to keep a cluttered office, suggesting that “whatever room of the father’s (heavenly) house Monsignor Rauscher is in” could become similarly cluttered.
“He was richly blessed by God … in return he gave us all he had,” Bambera said in his remarks. “One day we shall joyfully greet him again.”
The bishop also pointed out that the cloth that covered the altar during the funeral had been hand-stitched by Rauscher’s mother, the late Bertha Kaufmann Rauscher who fashioned on it the words ”Ich bin das Brod des Lebens,” which translates to the biblical quote: “I am the bread of life.”
Among the mourners who traveled great distances to attend the funeral were nieces and nephews from Virginia and Michigan as well as the Rev. Balireddy Ponnapati, from Oklahoma, and the Rev. Lawrence Emmareddy, from Germany. Both priests are originally from India and served at St. Nicholas Church years ago under Rauscher’s mentorship.
Joined by guest singers from other churches the choir sang many songs, including some the family of the deceased had requested, such as “Heart of Jesus, Hear,” which the monsignor and his siblings sang at the church of their youth, the former St. Boniface Church. One of the prelude numbers before the Funeral Mass was Oscar Hammerstein’s “Edelweis,” which Rauscher’s sister Theresa Gawlas said her brother enjoyed more recently at St. Nicholas’ annual pre-Lenten party, German Nite.
“He loved singing ‘Edelweis.’ That, and ‘O du schoene Schnitzelbank’,” she said, recalling a rousing, call-and-response number her brother would lead by pointing, verse by verse, to a chart filled with pictures of the diverse items that are the subjects of the song.
