Deacon Paul Michael McArdle, 76, went to be with the Lord on June 24, 2010 in Brownsville. He was born December 9, 1933 in Holyoke, Massachusetts to John and Katherine McArdle. He was one of eight children. He was baptized in late 1933 at the beautiful, neo-Gothic Church of the Holy Cross in Holyoke, Mass. One of his earliest memories was of kneeling before the Christmas crib there and contemplating the Mother and Child. As a teenager he was blessed with Catholic friends who were active in youth programs. Paul often accompanied his father on his plumbing jobs, and worked in the tobacco fields in his teens. Because of his size and nimbleness, he had the job of climbing up in the rafters to hang tobacco leaves. Throughout his life, he also worked in a bakery, drove a school bus, did construction work, taught school and was a school principal. His greatest joy, however, was serving Christ and the church. At the age of twenty, he discerned a call to the priesthood and was accepted into the minor seminary of the Passionist community, two of the happiest years of his life. He developed a devotion to Our Lady at that time doing nightly Rosaries and hymns to her. After the novitiate year he received the habit and the leather belt with its attached, beautiful rosary, and after six more years of advanced theological training in the monastery he was not approved for major orders. He went home, took a job and proudly purchased a good, used car for his parents (a '56 Chevy Belair). In July of 1963, he was invited to serve in a mission school in Mora, New Mexico with the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT). Paul often reminisced about the pranks played on him by the school children—pulling spark plugs out of the bus to avoid school and overstocking the wood burning stove causing sooty explosions. He gained lifelong friends among the volunteers, and founders of SOLT, Fr. James Flanagan and Fr. John McHugh. One special volunteer stood out, his future bride, Barbara Pulese. In 1965, Paul relocated to Phoenix, Arizona as an assistant teacher in a small, private school and did his graduate studies in education at Arizona State University. In the summer of 1965, Fr. Flanagan asked him to staff Holy Rosary elementary school in East St. Louis, Illinois, and encouraged him to host a Legion of Mary presidium. On June 10, 1967, he was married, and he and Barbara (and baby John) spent 1969 at the seminary at Orchard Lake, Mich., where he studied for the diaconate. He was ordained on May 24, 1970, the first married permanent deacon in the United States. They spent the next six months in Kansas City waiting for their second child, Maria, to be old enough to travel to their new assignment with Fr. John McHugh and the SOLT community in Belize. For nine years, Deacon Paul worked in the beautiful remote parish missions in Belize and Guatemala, sharing Christ with the local people. He and Barbara were blessed with two more daughters, Paula and Patrice. Nine years later, Paul and his family came to Brownsville, Texas, at the invitation of Bishop John Fitzpatrick, and for several years, worked full-time as a deacon, often playing his guitar at Masses and singing "Buenos Dias, Paloma Blanca" and "Adios, Reina del Cielo" among others. His children attended the Catholic schools of the Incarnate Word Sisters and he fondly remembered his daughter, Patrice, crowning the image of Our Lady one year. His wife, Barbara, passed away in 1996, and in April of 1999 he began full-time employment as a hospice chaplain, preparing families for the death of a loved one and in helping them during the grieving process. He had a great love for the people of Brownsville, and was never more delighted than when he was baptizing, marrying, burying and preaching the Word. The McArdle family is grateful for the many years of hospitality, friendship and love shown him by the Brownsville community and the Society of Our Lady. We will miss his faithful fatherhood, his generosity, his sense of humor and his lively spirit. He is survived by his son John McArdle and his wife Ann, and their children Kelli and Sean; Maria Rodriguez and her husband Oscar and their children Mia, Oscar and Francisco; Paula McArdle; Patrice Resendez and her husband Mike, and their children Noah, Emma, Annie and Isabella; as well as Edgar DeLeon and his wife Peggy and their children. He is also survived by his siblings Louise Clemens, Mary Balk, Connie Rodrigue, Nancy Ferriter, Laura Eckstein and Fred McArdle. He is predeceased by his wife Barbara Joan McArdle, his brother Philip McArdle and his parents, John and Katherine McArdle. Visitation will be held on Sunday June 27th, 2010 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at Thomae-Garza Funeral Home in San Benito and will continue from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. with a Holy Rosary recited at 7:00 p.m. at Good Shepherd Catholic Church, 2645 Tulipan St., in Brownsville. Visitation will be held on Monday, June 28th at Good Shepherd Catholic Church from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. with Mass of Resurrection to begin at 11:00 a.m. with Father Gerry Sheehan officiating. Committal Services will follow to Buena Vista Memorial Park Cemetery in Brownsville. Pallbearers will include John McArdle, Noah Resendez, Oscar Rodriguez, Mike Resendez, Jimmy Burrows and Mauricio Rodriguez In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in memory of Deacon Paul McArdle to the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, 3816 Co. Road 61, PO Box 152, Robstown, TX 78380, (361) 387-2754 or the Good Shepherd Catholic Church, 2645 Tulipan St., Brownsville, Texas 78520 (956) 542-5142 You may sign the guest book or send your condolence and words of comfort to the family of Deacon Paul McArdle at www.thomaegarza.com Funeral arrangements entrusted to the care of Thomae-Garza Funeral Home, 395 S. Sam Houston, San Benito, Texas (956) 399-1331