Funeral Mass for philanthropist Anthony Abraham

Photographer: THE MIAMI HERALD | FILE PHOTO

Philanthropist and auto dealer Anthony Abraham, a Lebanese-American businessman who devoted much of his life to helping those in need, died Friday, Oct. 21, in Miami.

Today, we commend the soul of Anthony Abraham to the Lord, asking him to crown him with eternal life. He was a remarkable man. And he was a good steward of the many gifts that God gave him and because of that he has helped to shape this South Florida community that we are proud to call home.

In the catechism of our youth we learned that God made us to know him, serve him and love him in this life and so to be happy with him in the next. And we can say that Mr. Abraham not only could recite this lesson, he lived it. He knew where he was going � and he knew the way, for he believed sincerely what Jesus says in the gospel, �I am the way and the truth and the life.�

Because he truly sought to know God, to serve him and to love him, Anthony Abraham could never settle for a life of mediocrity marked by a minimalist ethic or a superficial religiosity.

Recently, Pope Benedict XVI in speaking of the challenge that the Church faces in this post modern and skeptical world said: (and I quote)

�What we most need at this moment of history are men who make God visible in this world through their enlightened and lived faith. The negative witness of Christians who spoke of God but lived against him obscured his image and opened the door to unbelief. We need men who have their eyes fixed straight on God, and who learn from him what true humanity is.�

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO | FC

Choirbishop Michael Thomas of the Eparchy of St. Maron of Brooklyn preaches the homily at the funeral Mass for Anthony Abraham. Choirbishop Thomas previously served as pastor of Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Catholic Church in Miami where Abraham attended and did much to support its growth.

In Anthony Abraham, we had here such a man, a man of enlightened and lived Catholic faith; a man who kept his eyes fixed straight on God and learned from him true humanity

This Catholic faith also, I think, explains why Anthony Abraham was the humanitarian that he was � and why in his humanitarian pursuits he embraced the full truth about the human person expressed in a consistent ethic that upheld the dignity of all human life from the first moment of conception till natural death.

He did not conform himself to this age � in which people are too often valued for what they have and not for who they are. Nor he would allow himself to reduce any human being to being just a problem. Unborn babies were not problems � but human beings that should be welcomed in life and protected by law; homeless and troubled teens were not problems, but persons who needed nurture and love; the handicap and mentally challenged, the elderly and the infirmed, not problems, but people who can give love and certainly deserve to receive love as well.

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO | FC

Archbishop Wenski speaks at the end of the funeral Mass for Lebanese Catholic and local philanthropist Anthony Abraham.

Anthony Abraham was a good man, an honest man, yes even a holy man; but, he was still a man, a human being like all of us here and as such a sinner in need of redemption. And he would be the first to ask us to pray for him. And in the Mass, which for us Catholics is the perfect prayer, for it is Jesus� own prayer offered from the Cross, we have prayed that God will forgive him whatever sins he may have committed through human weakness. Our prayers are filled with hope in the Divine Mercy of our God and they accompany him as he goes home to the Lord

Eternal Rest grant unto him, O Lord. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through Mercy of God rest in Peace. Amen.

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO | FC

Archbishop Thomas Wenski watches as the body of Anthony Abraham is brought into Epiphany Church.