STAMFORD— The Mass of Christian Burial celebrating the life of Msgr. Nicholas V. Grieco at St. Cecilia / St. Gabriel Church on December 3, was an occasion of joy as well as sadness as Msgr. Grieco was remembered as a man and a priest who wanted to be a priest from an early age, loved the Church and lived sacrificially to serve its people.
Image from http://ilregno2s.blogspot.com/2019/10/
Bishop Frank J. Caggiano celebrated the Mass and was joined by more than 30 priests throughout the Diocese, family members, parishioners of St. Francis Parish in Weston where Msgr. Grieco had served as pastor before retiring, and many others who had worked with him throughout the diocese.
Msgr. Thomas Powers, Vicar General of the Diocese, delivered the funeral homily and remembered Msgr. Grieco as a “priests’ priest” who promoted vocations, mentored younger priests, heard their confessions and urged them to always keep Christ at the center of their lives.
He said that during this year of St Joseph, who is Patron of the Happy Death, Msgr. Grieco faced death with great acceptance and died with a smile on his face.
Msgr. Grieco, who founded Fairfield County Catholic and was the first Director of Communications, also held other diocesan posts including serving as leader of religious education. In remembering Msgr. Grieco, Msgr. Powers said he had his “four loves: his love for Jesus, his love for the Church, his love for God’s people and his love for evangelizing and spreading God’s word.”
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Before leading the final prayers Bishop Caggiano expressed condolences to Msgr. Grieco’s sister, Isabelle, and family members. He said that he will personally miss Msgr. Grieco because of his goodness and genuineness as a person and a priest.
“We’ve lost a priest but gained an intercession,” the bishop said, noting that Msgr. Grieco gently spoke the truth and led a genuine life. He understood it was important “to say what you mean and mean what you say.”
Many have requested a copy of the eulogy delivered by Msgr. Powers. We are pleased to share it here in full:
Monsignor Nicholas Grieco – Funeral Homily
In April of 2016, Bishop Caggiano called together all the priests of the Diocese for a meeting to discuss, among other things, priestly fraternity. A few days before that meeting, Monsignor Grieco had given a beautiful homily at Fr. Fred Saviano’s funeral, and what he said was so powerful that I asked him if I could share his words with the entire presbyterate at our meeting. He said he was humbled and surprised at my request, but was happy and grateful to be asked.
That is how I feel today: humbled and surprised that Monsignor wanted me to be the homilist at his funeral Mass, but very happy and grateful to be asked.
What did Monsignor say in his homily that had struck me so powerfully? Well, he spoke about the role of the parish priest, who, he said, is to serve and be with his people, to create a communal existence among them and to bring them the sacraments so that Jesus can touch their lives. Then, speaking of his relationship with Fr. Fred he added, “We both shared a deep love—for Jesus—for His Church—for God’s people—and for the work of evangelization. The harmony we had in the rectory flowed over to harmony in the life of the parish.”
That quote gives us some insight into the priestly heart of Monsignor Grieco, and it also highlights what motivated Monsignor every day and what shaped and inspired all his work as a priest: his love for Jesus; his love for the Church; his love for God’s people and his love for evangelization. To borrow a title from one of Monsignor’s favorite authors, C.S. Lewis, we could say those were his “four loves.”
First, Monsignor Grieco loved Jesus.
In 2019, when I was undergoing chemotherapy and recovering from my cancer surgery, I lived at Queen of the Clergy. One of the greatest blessings of that year was to get to know Monsignor at a much deeper level. I would go to him for Confession, advice and sometimes just to talk, because no matter what I was going through, he would always help me to refocus and put Jesus at the center of things.
Monsignor Grieco enjoyed talking politics, he liked to tell stories about his wonderful family and life in Brooklyn, and he was happy to speak about great books; but he loved to talk about Jesus. Jesus was his favorite topic. When he spoke about Jesus, he gave one the sense that Jesus is real, that Jesus is present here with us and that Jesus loves us unconditionally. During his 62 years as a priest, Monsignor wanted only to bring Jesus to others and others to Jesus. And he did so with Our Blessed Mother always by his side as his Strength and his Guide.
He would often speak about the pastoral plan he put in place at St. Francis of Assisi, especially the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, where everything flowed from Christ at the center. He even drew it for me one day on a piece of paper. Christ was in the center and all flew from him to every aspect of the parish. Parishioners from St. Francis – many of whom are here today, including Todd, Lisa, Don and MaryLou, who have prepared our beautiful music and the program for the Mass – have told me that Monsignor stopped to pray to the Lord intentionally before making any significant decision for the parish. He wanted only to do what Jesus wanted him to do. Often when I passed him in the hallway at Queen of the Clergy, I would say, “Jesus at the center,” and he would chuckle and give his customary, “That’s riiiiight, that’s riiiiight.”
Jesus, for Monsignor Grieco, was not only his Lord, his God, his Savior; he was his Friend. In fact, he was his best Friend. And I cannot tell you how many times I would see Monsignor sitting in the chapel by himself spending time with his best Friend, the Friend we pray he is now with for eternity.
Monsignor loved the Church.
Monsignor saw many, many changes occur in the Church during his lifetime. He persevered when many of his generation left the priesthood; he was not blind to the challenges within the Church, and he was saddened by betrayal and scandal, especially when it involved clergy. But he never, never doubted the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ and as the instrument of salvation, despite the weakness and frailty of her members.
Monsignor’s spiritual father was Padre Pio. He went to confession to him as a younger man (demonstrating, in my mind, not only his commitment to sanctity, but also his amazing courage!), and Padre Pio’s name was the last name Monsignor said before he died. Like Padre Pio, who was no stranger to challenges in the Church, Monsignor was always faithful to the Church, despite problems and disappointments. He loved his Spouse, the Church, we could say, in good times and in bad, all the days of his life, always honoring her, defending her, speaking well of her and dying to self for her.
And he read voraciously about the Church. He wanted to learn everything he could about her and her teachings – Scripture, Liturgy, History, Spirituality. He would regularly recommend articles to me or talk about books that he had read or was currently reading. So vast was his library that it is no coincidence that shortly after he moved into Queen of the Clergy in 2010, plans were drawn up to put on the new wing!
He was a big supporter and promoter of the Second Vatican Council, as he sensed, at the time, that the Church needed renewal. When interviewed for his 50th anniversary of priesthood, he put it this way: “I had always wondered when would the Church put certain things into practice, and then Vatican II came along and my question was answered.”
Monsignor loved God’s people, which included priests, religious sisters and the lay faithful.
On his ordination day, Monsignor Grieco became configured to act in the person of Christ. And, like Christ, he from that day offered himself to God and His people in sacrificial, self-giving love. Monsignor loved as a priest, and he loved being a priest, a desire he had had since the age of seven. He was a priests’ priest, and he prayed for, supported and challenged priests to be the best they could be. He promoted priestly vocations and served as a confessor for many of us over the years.
He was a wonderful example to us priests, because he showed us not only how to love God’s people, but he reminded us of the source of that love: daily prayer and the Eucharist. Monsignor taught us that we can be fed spiritually while having a smile on our face. He taught us that we can be growing in Christian charity and also be laughing; that we can embrace the Cross and still embrace one another in joy; that we can be on the road to Heaven and still enjoy ourselves. Some of the best therapy ever offered to many of us was simply being in the presence of Monsignor and sharing in his kindness and his contagious hope. His love of life, his warmth, his goodness and his generosity helped us to put our problems into context, to trust in God’s providence and to remember that we are never alone.
Many of the priests here will remember that after every Chrism Mass, Monsignor would host us for dinner at St. Francis, and he would welcome all of us with the same words every year. He would say with a big smile and a booming voice the words from Psalm 133 in Latin: “Ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum, habitare fratres in unum!” (“How good and how pleasant it is, when brothers dwell together as one!”) And he meant it.
He also had a profound respect for religious sisters. For many years, Monsignor went to the Little Workers of the Sacred Hearts every month to give a conference, hear confessions and lead them in spiritual exercises, and for the last 5 years he gave their annual 5-day retreat. I remember seeing him working on one of those retreats. He worked meticulously, making detailed notes, even providing the sisters with a program and helpful summary sheet of what topics he would be addressing. When he told the sisters a few years ago that they should ask someone else to give the retreat the following year so that they would hear a different perspective, they wouldn’t hear of it.
And he saw the lay faithful as his family and as his spiritual children whom God had placed under his care. He was there when they were sad and needed a shoulder to cry on, or when a loved one had died; he picked them up when they had fallen and corrected them when they had strayed. How many in this very church were absolved by him, baptized by him, married by him, anointed by him, received counsel from him and received the Eucharist through his hands? He was a spiritual father and when people saw him, they saw a visible sign of just how good, how loving and how generous God the Father is.
Finally, Monsignor loved to evangelize.
At the daily concelebrated Mass at Queen of the Clergy, the Universal Prayer is always opened up so that any priest can add his own special intention. Monsignor had the same intention every single day. Not some days or most days. Every single day. And he said it with vigor, determination and confidence that God would answer his prayer. Every day Monsignor prayed this: “That the new evangelization may take deep root in the hearts of all the faithful to bring forth a new springtime in the Church.”
Monsignor did not just pray for that. He spent his entire priesthood working to make it a reality by evangelizing. He served not only as the Diocesan Director of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, as Director of Diocesan Communications and as Secretary of Evangelization for the Diocese, but he was also the founding editor of the Fairfield County Catholic, which Monsignor saw as a tool of evangelization and not just a means of informing people of news and events.
And Monsignor was evangelizing right up to the end, literally to his last day. And when he took his final breath last Saturday, he did so with a big smile, the same smile that throughout his life had been his most effective mode of evangelizing. In this year dedicated to Saint Joseph, Patron of a Happy Death, it is hard to imagine a happier death. It is hard to imagine anyone being more prepared to die and so at peace as Monsignor Grieco. He told Bishop Caggiano and others just before he died, “I am ready,” as though he was hearing Jesus say to him the same words we heard in today’s Gospel: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.”
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Isabelle, we offer our condolences to you as you mourn the loss of your brother whom you loved very much and to whom you were so devoted, especially during his final days. You, like many of us here, knew and loved Monsignor when he was healthy, vibrant and full of life; but you, in a profound way, along with Angela, Vickey and the priests and the staff at Queen of the Clergy, cared for and loved Monsignor also when he was frail and dying. Thank you for that witness.
We, with you, share the confidence of St. Paul, who in the second reading today tells us that in Christ death no longer has power; and we gather to pray for the soul of Monsignor Nicholas Vincent Grieco. We pray with gratitude to the Lord for placing him in our lives. We pray in confidence of God’s mercy and with hope of eternal life for him who brought us and countless others closer to Jesus through Mary with a smile. And we pray that our loving Father will bring Monsignor Grieco to his home in Heaven and reward him for his “four loves:” his love for Jesus, his love for the Church, his love for God’s people and his love for evangelizing and spreading God’s word.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon him.
May he rest in peace. Amen.
May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
