Editor’s note: Following is the full text from the homily given at the Feb. 21 funeral Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Peoria for Msgr. E. Edward Higgins, 80, a senior priest of the diocese who died on Feb. 16. The homilist was Father Thomas Taylor, parochial vicar at St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in Peoria Heights.

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I want to begin today by thanking all of you on behalf of Father Ed’s family for joining in our prayer for him today. In the visitation last night, the gathering after our Mass today, and tomorrow in Ottawa we start to see a small fraction of the lives he touched in 55 years of priesthood. As we offer this Mass for him today, we thank God for the 20,000 or so Masses he offered for us over the years.

Ed was born to Emmett and Mercedes Higgins on Aug. 24, 1931 in Ottawa. He was a true Irishman. A visit with Ed was to hear story after story, many of them even true. They were all accompanied with a twinkle in his eye at no extra charge.

He was older brother to Ann, who was the subject of some of his first teaching attempts. These included how to play baseball and the Latin responses to the Mass (which was really to help him to get them down in order to become a Mass server). He attended Ottawa High School, excelling in his studies and in having fun. To be around Ed meant that he was up for any adventure, so you had to be also.

His vocation goes back to the summer after graduation. Some people think that priests must just be born with a priest’s gene. But their talents and abilities, likes and dislikes, cover the whole human spectrum. They are representatives of the universal priesthood of the faithful we all share in by our baptism, because this is who will be served by them.

At some point a call comes to him and it must be answered. After high school Ed had planned to go to Creighton and study to become a pharmacist. During that summer, he decided that he wanted to become a priest. There were two problems: 1) His dad had already sent in a $50 non-refundable deposit to Creighton ($50 was a lot of money back then), and 2) It was a sign of indecisiveness to his father at a time when you were supposed to know what you were going to do. But when his father looked into his eyes, he realized that this meant everything to Ed.

The next hurdle was his interview with the bishop before being accepted as a seminarian. He worried that the bishop would ask why he went to the public high school rather than Marquette. And sure enough, during the interview, Bishop Schlarman said “You’re from Ottawa, so you went to Marquette?”

Without batting an eye Ed fired back, “Lived right across the street.”

He was sent to St. Ambrose College for his undergraduate studies. While there he met Jim Campbell, who was one of the day students. Jim was later accepted for the seminary for the diocese despite some health concerns and they became classmates at St. Paul’s Seminary. Ed would sometimes refer to our future vicar general as “Grandpa,” because he had served in World War II and was older than the rest of them.

After ordination, Jim asked him once to go to the opera with him. Ed thought, “Opera?,” but as I said Ed was always up for anything. He went and enjoyed it so much he wound up getting season tickets to the Lyric Opera for the next 40 years.

Father Ed’s first assignment was at St. Mark’s Church here in Peoria. He was the third assistant to Father Fitzgerald and always used to claim he was a 65th birthday present to him from the bishop.

Father Fitz had his own ways of doing things and wasn’t too receptive to change. One of the ways Ed and Father Dale Maloy tried to loosen him up was by pre-planning dinner conversations. They would begin arguing a theological point. (Ed would always take the liberal side and Father Maloy the conservative.) They would go at it until it seemed like they were going to come to blows when Father Fitz would step in and be the reconciler. And they would thank him.

In addition to his one Sunday Mass each week he would teach in the school and coach basketball. Once while he was at St. Mark’s one of the classmates asked him what his day off was. When Ed said he didn’t get one, the classmate got irate until he learned of all the afternoons he went golfing with Fitz and the season tickets to Bradley’s basketball games.

After the Vatican Council, he helped Father Fitzgerald adjust to the changes. By the end of their 16 years together, he was the only assistant and took care of him until his death. Ed always retained a place in his heart for his first and only pastor. Years later, when someone gave him a dog, he even named it “Fitz.”

In 1973, he became pastor in Monticello and over the years served parishes in Streator, Pontiac, Lincoln, Atlanta, and Mason City. By then a bit of Father Fitz had rubbed off on him, because he was able to make the tough decisions that sometimes needed to be made. As a pastor, he succeeded because the Mass was the center of who he was as a priest and because he truly loved people.

Our Gospel this morning was chosen because it reflects who Ed was. Two disciples are walking the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus on the original Easter morning, trying to make sense of what had happened over the past three days. When Jesus meets up and walks with them, they have the marvelous opportunity to listen to him for the couple of hours needed to get there (although they are prevented from knowing who he is). When they arrive, he pretends that he is going farther but is persuaded to stay and eat with them. It is not until he says the blessing and breaks the bread that their eyes are opened to his identity.

Many of our fondest memories of Father Ed are nice leisurely meals shared with him. Meals with plenty of time to listen to his stories and maybe get in a few of our own. But no matter how many stories you shared, you didn’t know him until you were able to pray with him at the Mass and see the faith that made him who he was.

Anyone who offers the Eucharist for others can’t help but be moved by it. It is the sign and the summit of the vocation a priest is called to. It is a living reminder, with each celebration, of our call to feed Christ’s sheep, with our lives in whatever ways we are able.

Our second reading from St. Paul was chosen because it was one of the ordination readings.

One of the great joys for Father Ed was watching his sister’s family grow and becoming their “Uncle Eddie.” How cool is it to have an uncle who is not only a priest but can fly you in his airplane? Over the years he baptized his nephew and nieces, officiated at their weddings, and baptized their children. The picture on the program is of Ed and most of the great nephews and nieces he baptized. You were all loved by him and the subjects of many of his stories.

Having mentioned flying, I need to add that he was a longtime member of the Priest Pilots Association. He and Father Remm went to many of their conventions together, even after Ed didn’t recertify his license after his heart surgery. He loved flying for its own sake rather than just to get from point to point. Having said that, he once flew the parents of a couple whose ceremony he was going to perform to the wedding when they weren’t otherwise able to get there. Why weren’t they able to get there? Because commercial flights weren’t flying because of the weather.

You’ve got time for a few more stories, don’t you? OK.

Once while he was in Streator he had a priest assigned there to help with Hispanic ministry in the area. A Father Javier Cuevas showed up at his door with very limited English and asking for Padre Higgins. From that first afternoon of communicating mostly through sign language, Ed taught him enough English to get by and picked up some Spanish along the way. In their years together, Ed learned much about Mexican culture and was enriched by it.

During his years in Pontiac he got to know Father Jonas Callahan, a longtime chaplain at Pontiac Correctional Center, and was inspired by his work at the prison. Father Callahan’s descriptions of his work there, especially praying with inmates before their executions, had a profound effect upon him. They became golfing buddies and friends for life.

Years ago Father Ed helped Father Campbell get Beginning Experience started in our diocese. At one of the weekends for divorced and widowed he was wearing a name take with “Fr. Ed” in big block letters. One of the participants missed the period and called him “Fred,” and from that moment he was Fred to everyone on the weekend and for many weekends thereafter.

By now I hope you realize Ed was a priest’s priest and a people person. You’ve heard of the six degrees of separation? That everyone on earth is connected to everyone else on earth by no more than six intermediaries? For Ed it was more like one degree of separation. He could walk up to a total stranger and after a while they would come up with someone they both knew. And then he could start into his stories about him or her.

Father Ed’s last assignment was to Lincoln. He had been at Pontiac for 12 years and it was starting to look like the parish he would retire from. When he received a call from Msgr. Campbell that Bishop Myers wanted him to go to Lincoln, he asked for the weekend to think it over. But he knew as soon as he hung up that he would say “yes.” He was a healing presence there for six years, even after he had passed retirement age and his Parkinson’s disease was starting to manifest its early stages.

After leaving Lincoln, he still couldn’t just sit around and so he helped Father LeClercq, with whom he had served at St. Mark’s. He took up residence in Hennepin and served the people there for three years. By that time his voice was at times barely more than a whisper, but it proclaimed the Gospel in other ways. They and all the parishioners he served saw a priest whose life had become the service he could render to them. They understood the sacrifice of the Mass as clearly as if they had been able to witness Christ carrying his cross to Calvary.

The last priestly service that Msgr. Higgins offered was on the Friday before he died. One of his fellow residents at St. Clare’s was a former parishioner at St. Mark’s who was celebrating her 100th birthday and she insisted that Monsignor come to her party. It took all his effort, but with both hands he gave her a blessing.

We have gathered today to commend this man — Monsignor, Father Ed, Emmett, Fred, Padre Higgins, Uncle Eddie, or whoever he was to you — to our Father in heaven. We are able to do so because of the faith he had in the resurrection — a faith he shared with so many people over the years. We ask that any sins he committed be forgiven because of his faith and the love with which he answered God’s call.

I think that Ed would be pleased that his funeral is on Fat Tuesday. I hope all of you can join us in the pastoral center after the Mass. I’ve tried to share as many stories as I could reasonably fit in, but there we’ll have plenty of time to get to the rest of them.

I shouldn’t do this because I will leave someone out, but I want to thank Julie Ensenberger, Angela Kenney, Jack and Ann, Patty and all Ed’s family, the staff at St. Clare’s, his cousin Don, and all who visited him these past years for your care and being there for him. Your love and kindness was always appreciated by him and by his maker. We will continue to be united to Father Ed each time we gather around the Lord’s table and receive food for our journey.