Obituary Notice
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Fr. Gabriel Frankowski (1915-1992) FATHER GABRIEL FRANKOWSKI CP RIP POON CISTRRR Mert PePeTU Get) TH el Per HUA Fa irpeevislgSanga tishaead eababeiginic tates iséstaeea ad aang andiaitinacen anise bap buntaapiceeti enkaedge TEE AGFA It is the present mind of the Church that funeral homilies should not be pahegyrics or sermons praising the departed Christian. This restriction has not, I believe, commonly created difficulties within the Congregation of the Passion. In the case of Father Gabriel Frankowski, however, the matter is different. And If I had to give a title to my homily, it would be "finding Heaven the harder way". How does oné Féecapture seventy-eavan years - for he bettered the psalmist's three score and ten? How does one recapture Gabriel? Each man and woman whose life he touched, each one of vs has his or her own memories. Born at the beginning of the First World War, in northern Poland, hear the Baltic, he came of a pious family of seven boys and two girls. As a young Christian in search of the true following of Christ, Leon, as he was baptised, renounced the discipline of marriage and the urgent claims of family life, to join the Passionist community in Poland, then a very smal) but elite province of the world-wide Order. He thus truly became "a man for others" in the way of Paul of the Cross. He was twenty and the year was 1935, Like many another before him and since, the young Gabriel went off to Romé; to listen to interminable Latin lectures, to dream dreams about his future ministry as a Passionist, and to witness at first hand the jackboot of the Dictators, since Mussolini was making the trains run on time, and ruthlessly suppressing all opposition to his Fascist fantasies. He was ordained in the summer of 1940, while his homeland was being devastated by the barbarians, and his adoptive country was bracing itself For the Battle of Britain. Born in the midst of violence) andl ordained in the midst of violence, his chivalry and bravery were never in doubt, and Gabriel became a distinguished military chapiain to the Free Polish Army - we found his decorations. He ministered to the troops in Eyypt
and Italy, where the Poles fought many bitter campaigns. When that part of his priestly ministry was fulfilled, and as a consequence of the foul contagion of communism, Gabriel was unable to rejoin his Passionist brethren in Poland. Like his Divine Master before him on that final journey to Jerusalem, he suffered because he knew he was teing watched by the malicious, who hated him, his God and his Church. Like Our Lord, he too was forced into exile - from which he never returned - in 1949 when he joined St. Joseph's Province. And as so often happens in God's Providence, his English brethren welconed him, and subsequently he found great fulfilment, for over forty years, in quiet priestly ministry to his teloved Polish brothers and sisters, especially those in Waltham Cross. In our Passionist tradition too, he was much sought after as a confessor. "Quiet" and "“unobstrusive" are words that spring to mind when describing Gabriel. He loved music, was an excellent singer, a determined choirmaster, and few of us knew that he composed, particularly .. hymnody. He had an almost Egyptian liking for cats - sométimes to the indulgent annoyance of his brethren. He was a devout and devoted gardener,. and nobody in the whole of North London had greener fingers than he. But iife on earth is subject to decay; and Gabriel's body, towards the end, became of Jittle use to him. One of the few times I heard him complain was when he told me how frustrated he was at not being able to bend down to weed and prune in the garden. He gradual)y became more and more paralysed with the . arthritic pain that was slowly enveloping him...He will have abandoned his body without much regret when the Lord called him a week ago, a small] exchange for experiencing fully the truth for which his priestly spirit sought. Death is unremarkable. We ail must most surely die - please God with dignity, surrounded by brethren, friends, anointed with God's oil, as Gabriel was. It is life that counts: a life transformed in Christ, a life whose risen quality is already manifest on earth as in today's Gospel reading: “whoever believes in me will live, even theugh he dies". 13.5.1992.
Source: Obituary Notices, Provincial Archive, St Joseph's Province. Passionist Congregation.