Funeral Mass of Fr. Thomas Gills
St. Peter Church
McHenry, Maryland
September 15, 2025
In the Hand of God
To you, Fr. Tom’s family, we join in offering you our prayerful sympathy as well as our profound thanks for your sharing Fr. Tom with us all these years. Lynn and Chris, Ted, please know that we are one with you as today we commend Fr. Tom to the Lord of life and love. Let me extend love and sympathy to Fr. Tom’s nephews & extended family, to my brother priests and deacons, and you, the parishioners of St. Peter’s. Scripture says, “The souls of the just are in the hand of God and no torment shall touch them.” We entrust Fr. Tom’s soul into the merciful hand of God, confident that God’s “grace and mercy are with his holy ones and his care is with his elect.”
Acquainted with Our Sorrows
In that confidence, we give thanks to God for Fr. Tom’s life. Lynn, Chris, and Ted, through tears of grief, you have no doubt shared many memories of Tom. Come what may, through thick and thin, when the going was rough, he loved you and stayed close to you even though his service to our country took him to faraway places. When I had lunch with him a few years ago (in an unsuccessful effort to have him remain longer as Pastor of St. Peter’s), he told me about his desire to have more time to spend with you and with his extended family, precisely because his military service and chaplaincy kept him away. Being an old softie, I capitulated.
After graduating from high school, Fr. Tom enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He served in the Navy from 1972 until 1979 when he entered the seminary. By then, the pattern of his life emerged: love of God and love of country. He would go on to serve both with distinction. Ordained by Archbishop Borders in 1986, he would serve in various parishes before entering the Air Force Reserve. Later, he would go on to full time service as a military chaplain. Eventually he was deployed both to Afghanistan and Iraq where he experienced the desperation and ravages of war. What he saw had a lasting impact on his life. He could not unsee what he saw or “un-experience” what he experienced. Every good priest grieves over the sufferings of those he serves. The carnage and disfigurement of his comrades seared his priestly soul. Memories lingered in spite of every effort to move ahead. Fr. Tom almost daily got up in the wee hours to run six or seven miles, not only to keep himself in shape but because often he could not sleep. Eventually, in spite of his prayer, the help he sought, and his best efforts, all this took its toll on him physically and emotionally, but it did not defeat him. “For if God is on our side, who can be against us?”
Soon after I began serving as Archbishop of Baltimore, I learned that Fr. Tom was thinking of retiring from the military and serving in an Archdiocesan parish, preferably in Mountain Maryland. Excited as I was, Fr. Tom advised me to “curb my enthusiasm, as in his own good time, he resigned his commission (by then he attained the rank of Major), and found his way back to the Premier See. It was with great happiness that I invited him to be pastor here at St. Peter’s. Like anyone transitioning from one culture to another, there were a few “inflight” adjustments, but it quickly became clear to me that the parishioners of St. Peter’s had found their good shepherd. Fr. Tom was one of those priests who would do anything he could for his people. I think he would have walked off a pier for any one of you. He was always positive and upbeat, hospitable and welcoming.
Some, indeed, may have thought he tried too hard, but that is who Fr. Tom was: a priest who loved those he served, whether a comrade in arms or parishioners trying to find their way to heaven. Perhaps he was like this because he had seen so much suffering, knew better than most the frailty of the human condition, and understood more than most our need for the Lord’s lovingkindness. In not sparing himself, he was also attempting to live the Beatitudes, the heart of the Gospel, in which Jesus portrays who he is and then portrays who and what his followers should be like. No one of us lives the Beatitudes perfectly but it surely can be said that Fr. Tom strove daily to be a Christ-like priest.
The fruit of his priestly labors was evident when I came to St. Peter’s to install Father Tom’s successor, your wonderful and current pastor, Fr. Bill Keown. It was evident to me, that you, the people of St. Peter’s held Fr. Tom in great affection, and so I came today to stand with you, so that we could offer one another the consolation that comes from faith. With you, I pray that the Lord will give Fr. Tom eternal peace.
Continual Prayer
Fr. Tom, who was himself a prayerful priest, would surely want us to remember him in our prayers, not just in the days ahead but in the long haul. Holy Mass was at the heart of his priestly existence, whether as a parish priest or a military chaplain. Let us continue to offer Holy Mass for the happy repose of his soul. While the world says, ‘there’s nothing we can do for him now,’ our faith teaches that, because of Christ’s victory over sin and death, death does not break the bonds of friendship and love. In eternity, Fr. Tom can pray for us. On earth, we can pray for him. Christ is the bridge between death and life, time and eternity.
Fr. Tom, we commend you to the Lord of life and love. Thank you, my dear brother! May you rest in the peace of Christ!