kiss me, you fool

 Homily

Fr. Robert Pflumm Funeral Mass

16 October 2020

St. Joseph Parish Shawnee

AMDG +JMJ +m

Kiss me, you fool!

I know a line from Gone with the Wind is not the most orthodox way to start a funeral homily for a Catholic priest.  But Fr. Bob was unique.  It's the line I'll most remember from Fr. Bob.  Kiss me, you fool.  Sounds scandalous, I know.  But it's chaste and innocent enough.  It's the flirt that Fr. Bob always used to get off the hook.

Kiss me, you fool!

Hollywood and the Gospel melted together for Fr. Bob.  He was a unique cocktail of a priest.  The recipe?  Equal parts Bing Crosby, Don Johnson, Vidal Sassoon and Bob Barker.  Shaken and stirred in persona Christi capitis.

Sounds complicated, but it wasn't.  To know and love Fr Bob was to learn how simple he was. And how simple he kept things.

Be yourself.  Follow through on whatever swing you take.  You might get away with it.  Or better, God might make something beautiful with it.

Fr. Bob wanted to be beautiful, I'll give him that.  I was jealous as hell of him.  Driving around like a movie star, whipping in and out of Mass like it was a red carpet cameo - flipping punchy stories and phrases as everyone swooned about how young and good-looking he was.  Good grief.  It was over the top sometimes.

He had is routine at a restaurant down to a science.  He would order a Ketel One on the rocks with two olives, an extra glass of ice and a water back.  The server would always get it wrong, then the food never came out hot enough, and Fr. Bob would throw a fit.  Then he would flirt to get out of it.  Kiss me, you fool.  Worked every darn time.  

Fr. Bob wasn't politically correct.  He was too much a throwback for the BLM or me-too movements.  He would rather be dead that woke.

He was going to be himself.  What he lacked in meekness or mortification he made up for in spades with conviction.  If he wanted to tell a kid to thank his parents for his braces as a penance, he told him.  If he didn't want to go to Prairie Star because it would get dirt on his car, he didn't go.  If he wanted you to know how good-looking his family was, or how fabulous his famous twin sisters were, you knew it.  If he wanted to gently touch your cheek or give you a sweet, innocent kiss, he did.  If he wanted to flirt, he flirted.  If he wanted to blow-dry his hair, he blew it.  If he liked a new car, he usually waited a couple years . . . . no, he bought it!  If he wanted to tell you to hurry up, he did.  If he wanted to say a fast Mass or deliver a punch homily, he did it.

I can't believe how it all came off.  The priesthood of Jesus Christ on tour through Rodeo Drive, Pebble Beach and Camelback Mountain, seen through the windshield of a new car as clean as the Immaculate Conception.

There won't be another like him.  At times he seemed untouchable.

Except I got to touch him.  As I held his hand Sunday and told him I loved him, I was there for a lot of people.  We all loved him.  We were all touched by him.  We will all miss him.  Praise God for the beautiful life that was Fr. Bob's.

Kiss me, you fool! Keep it simple, silly.  Be yourself.  Follow through on whatever swing you take.  For 90 years and for 60 if you dare.  You may not only get away with it.  God might do something beautiful with it.