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Mary Mraz
Culleny
Mother of eleven children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, writer, a person of faith and faithfulness with a sense of humor, prime point on the compass, and she was a baker Mary's Eulogy Jim Culleny Our mother was a baker. Next to God and family, baking was her pride and art and life. For all occasions, card and birthday parties, bake sales, communion breakfasts, weddings, cookies for your teacher, you name it, just ask and, like a generous and gifted alchemist, she’d shape the stuff of earth for you into pure delight. Mom worked in pungent astmospheres of wheat and yeast, and the atmospheres she orchestrated would flood the house. They’d rise into morning bedrooms lifted by her oven’s heat. They’d permeate upolstery and reach far corners of closets, or roll out into the street and make their way up half a block, so that home-comings were like falling Into bread-dough pillows on couches of cake. I think the attic bats lived there for those smells. The neighbors must have envied us our cinnamoned and appled oxygen. At family and other shindigs the pastries would be wall-to-wall. Brown and golden, rolled and folded walnut coffee cakes --abundant as her children-- populated almost every horizontal place, and where they didn’t there were pies. Pies that oozed inner goodness in hot pans. Where there were no pies there were the lightest puffs of cream... tender envelopes dusted on top like the snows of Kilaminjaro. Cookies in crannies. Napoleons in niches. Babka in baskets. Cupcakes in ranks across the table edge to edge ...and smores. And more smores! Endless confections flew from her hands like sonatas from the mind of Mozart. Yet with all her delicacies of sugar so dear to the tongues of kids, there was a better stuff she made: the best by far was bread. If I should make it to a hundred-ten before my life is shed, there’ll never be a scent so evocative of paradise as that rising from her stove so redolent with bread. The earthy smell of warm, light, buttered bread. Her love to all in bread. Make no mistake about it, our mother was a baker, a shaman of the staff of life, a cake craftsperson and fine loaf-shaper, a maestro with a spatula and icing knife. She was an artist
of love, and bread, and children. She was an ever faithful mother,
sister, aunt, and friend, and wife. |
Mary's Eulogy A disciple of Christ doesn’t have to be larger than life. A disciple of Christ doesn’t have to be louder than a crashing cymbal… A disciple of Christ can be a small, diminutive, soft spoken mother of 11 whose every action was intended to help those around her. What are our talents? God has given all of us gifts… we just have to take the time to discover what they are. Our mom always thought she did not have anything to give… she always felt she had nothing to offer… however she epitomized what stewardship is long before it was given a name. Time, talent, and treasure. Anyone who knew Mary Culleny – knew love. They knew kindness. She gave of her time throughout her whole life to her Church, to her family and to her friends. Being a busy mother of 11 you would think time certainly wasn’t something she had, but always there was time to bake for our classes, to help with homework, to tuck us in – to praise us. She had time to go to Church and pray the rosary. She had time to drive people to the doctors. She had time to be a disciple of Christ. Her treasure was small, and it was given with sacrifice. She always said that she wouldn’t have what she did without God, so she would try to give back what she could. Her faith told her, she would always be taken care of. Mom’s talent was to teach… not through intimidation, not through anger, not with piety, but through love. Her discipleship was one of words and example; not just to her children, but to everyone she met. Mom had taught us to be strong, to always maintain our integrity, to believe in ourselves, to have faith and know that God was always there. How can we recognize the discipleship of Mary Culleny? We can pull out that letter she wrote to us. We can smile as her words bring God’s light into our day. We can giggle at the tiny stick people marching across the flap of the envelope – happy to be coming to our house. She made us happy. We can identify the discipleship of Mary Culleny when we heard our birthday or anniversary announced on the radio. It made us feel good to know she always remembered. If you were a stranger you recognized the talent of Mary Culleny when she smiled and told you how pretty you are. You can recognize the steward as love personified. Mary Culleny was a gracious woman who knew that God was the answer. That giving was more important than receiving, that prayer was our direct line to God and he was always home. Mom’s gift to us, her children and grandchildren – is each other. She raised her family to “not fight” and she enjoyed every family gathering – of which there are many. She gave of herself without every expecting or wanting anything in return. Now we know she is in God’s embrace. She can now use her hands like she use to, she can hear Danny call her Mommy, she can rock her precious son Bobby and her grandchild Christopher, and she can dance with Angie. She can finally hug her mom again and see her sisters. She can look down on us and finally see her accomplishment and know now that she gave us all the gift of a lifetime. She brought love. She taught people that seemingly without anything, when you have faith in God and try to show others his path – you have everything that matters. We know that Mom is still praying for us all her children, her grandchildren and great grandchildren, her sister and brother, her nieces, nephews, friends and even strangers. Her stewardship was fulfilled to the enth degree. We just have to continue her example, look for our talent and know that we can all make a difference in the lives of others. |
