Vancouver Catholics celebrated their last Eucharist with Archbishop J. Michael Miller.

Deacon Zak Santiago said that while the May 13 Mass at Holy Rosary Cathedral was a celebration of Miller’s 18-year legacy and his 50 years of priesthood, “there is a tender melancholy as we say farewell to someone who brought such new beginnings to our diocese.”

“I truly believe he is one of the greatest bishops we could have ever asked for,” said Santiago. 

The farewell Mass was an occasion, Miller said, to “express my heartfelt gratitude” to God and to the faithful in Vancouver.

“Dear friends, thank you for accepting me when I first arrived, inexperienced as I was, and for being so willing to collaborate enthusiastically in the evangelizing mission that the Lord has entrusted to all of us. My gratitude for your patience and your prayers is immeasurable,” he said.

To the clergy and faithful he served for nearly two decades, he added: “Thank you for inspiring me by leading lives ‘worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience’ — as the Apostle Paul stated in our First Reading — ‘bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.’ 

“And please pray for me, as I begin a new chapter in my life as a disciple and priest of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

As a final farewell, Msgr. Gregory Smith, Vicar-General of the Archdiocese of Vancouver, delivered a tribute centred on the Archbishop’s upcoming golden jubilee of ordination to the priesthood.

“More than one word comes to mind when I think about Archbishop Miller: son, brother, Basilian, theologian, professor, dean, Vatican official, university president, Archbishop Secretary for the Congregation of Catholic Education and then Archbishop of Vancouver,” said Smith. “That’s the short list.”

Yet among those many roles, one title mattered most to Miller: priest.

“Nothing about Archbishop Miller is more important to him, or about him, than his ordination to the priesthood, that June day in 1975,” said Smith, referring to the archbishop’s ordination at the hands of Pope St. Paul VI.

He reminded the faithful that while bishops hold the fullness of Holy Orders, there are no great bishops without great priests. 

“We do acknowledge the supreme importance of ‘Father’ Miller’s ordination to the priesthood,” Smith said, emphasizing that all his later responsibilities were grounded in that original call.