Detroit — After decades of Cardinal Edmund C. Szoka traveling out to Muskegon for an annual August get-together with his relatives, there was talk of doing it differently this year.

“It was always in August, and ironically this weekend is the weekend,” recalled Mary Therese Sorensen, a second cousin. “He and I had a conversation this year, and I said, ‘Well why don’t you host this year? Maybe everyone can come.’ And we would never know that this would be the weekend,” she said following the Vespers service, the night before the cardinal’s funeral Mass.

Not that she and other relatives hadn’t traveled to this side before. “We’ve come here, or wherever, to celebrate with him all the joyous occasions — his 40th anniversary, his 25th year of being a bishop, the pope coming to Detroit … I mean, there’s just so many things: baptisms for the family, weddings in the family.

“It’s a little bit hard to wrap my head around that we won’t see him again, that this is the last time,” Sorensen said.

Robert Holmes, another second cousin, explained that his grandfather and the cardinal’s mother were brother and sister.

Speaking of the times when Cardinal Szoka would visit, he said it was always an occasion for the relatives.

“He affected everybody in our family. He brought us all closer together, just by the way he lived his life. Being such a man of faith, he truly inspired the whole family,” Holmes added.

Peter Koryzno, another second cousin, also shared his recollections of Cardinal Szoka: “It was always a big deal when he would come around. He always stayed close to the family, and we never lost touch with him.”

Referring to the cardinal’s many accomplishments, Koryzno added, “When he put his mind to something, there was no stopping him.”

Koryzno noted that part of Cardinal Szoka’s behind-the-scenes activities at the Vatican was orchestrating the arrangements when St. John Paul II died.

And Rosemary Robinson, another second cousin, remarked, “Of course, he had good people in place, but here it was this guy from St. Mike’s in Muskegon doing it!”

Ed Koryzno Jr., a second cousin who now lives in Ypsilanti, said when family members visited the Vatican, Cardinal Szoka would treat them so well and see that they got into events that it “had us almost feeling like royalty.”

Sorensen’s memories of her illustrious cousin go back to when she was just a young girl.

“He would always teach you a lesson by asking a question. And so if I were ever having trouble (especially with) brothers and sisters, aunts, he would say, ‘Well, how’s your brother or sister?’ (He knew I was unhappy with them).

“And he’d say, ‘It doesn’t mean that you can’t call them.’ Then I’d make the phone call or communicate with them because it was the right thing to do, you know, for forgiveness,” Sorensen recalled.

“He always had a great way of teaching you, in a subtle way, without being fully abrupt about things. But I have to say that he could be fully abrupt as well, because if it stood in his heart to do the right thing, he would just come right out and ask the question, ‘Why is this?’ or ‘Why is that?’ And I admired that about him, because it was a testament to how strong his faith was, as well as his motto, (which) was ‘To Live in Faith,’” she continued.

Sorensen said the cardinal was always firm in his resolve: “When he would see something that wasn’t right, he couldn’t just stand by if he knew he could fix it.”

—Michigan Catholic reporter Elizabeth Wong Barnstead contributed to this story.