Rev. Charles J. Vedral: A Eulogy
Editor’s Note: Hello readers! It’s been a minute since we last shared our writing with you. Life happens: babies, weddings, job changes, turning 40 and being tired, etc.
On November 21, Juliet Vedral’s life changed forever when her father, the Rev. Charles (Chuck) J. Vedral passed away after four weeks in hospice care. Pastor Chuck as he was more commonly known, was the founder of The Father’s Heart Ministries and was a pastor and ministry leader for over six decades in New York City. Juliet was asked to deliver a eulogy for her father’s celebration of life service on April 6, 2024. We are sharing her remarks here. As longtime readers of TWR will know, her father had several brushes of death in the past, which Juliet wrote about here.
It seems strange to be in this building, in this room, standing here, without Dad. I know we can all feel his absence. So much of my father’s life was tied up with this building. He gave his life to Jesus, married my mother, and dedicated three of his six kids, all in that chapel behind you. He ministered for six decades in this building. He’s so entwined with this church and this ministry, that some people thought his name was actually Father Heart.
And isn’t that why we are gathered here to remember Dad? He embodied so much of the Father’s Heart. Dad was a man of integrity and conviction, a man who would put his own needs aside to do what was right. He was a man with a fierce love for people and a man who was a fierce fighter on behalf of the Lord. In fact, Dad was a fighter until the very end. In the end, when in the early hours of Tuesday, November 21, after four weeks of hospice care and hours after celebrating his 80th birthday, he left this life and went to be with Jesus.
Preceded by his parents, William and Eileen, his brothers Billy and Bobby, and his sister Teresa, he is survived by his wife, Carol, his children Rob, Marthe, Jackie, Mike, Sam, and me, as well as our spouses, ten grandchildren, his sister Lorraine, his brothers Mike, Gary, and Jimmy, and 22 nieces and nephews. We survive in the eternal company of hundreds, if not thousands, of his spiritual children.
I’m honored to stand here as I tell you about my Dad, here where he preached so many sermons and inspired so many people to put their hope in Jesus. You learned a lot about him through his ministry. So let me add to that some things you couldn’t know.
For starters, those of you who are not pastor’s kids might wonder what it is like to have a preacher for a father. Well, we actually had both a preacher and a former gang president for a father and it was as interesting as you might imagine it would be. Dad lived Deuteronomy 6:6-7: “Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.” I recall multiple dinner table conversations in which Dad would talk about having good character. One dinner, when I was about 7 or 8, Dad warned us about keeping good company. “You don’t want to be charged as an accomplice if one of your friends steals something or kills someone.” Again, I was 7.
I’m happy to report that to this day I have never been an accomplice to a murder.
My favorite–and the most influential and memorable– of all of these came during breakfast in July 1992. While my sister Jackie and I were eating our cereal and looking forward to a day of summer laziness, Dad delivered a spontaneous lecture on having integrity using the Watergate scandal as an object lesson. I was 11. Jackie was 13. At the time, it felt like an enormous non-sequitor to our plans for roller skating around the neighborhood. In hindsight, I realize it was topical–it was the 20th anniversary of the scandal. And Dad went into all of it–the break-in, Woodward and Bernstein, Richard Nixon and the cover-up. People who found themselves in positions of power and clearly, bad company–you know, people who would find themselves accomplices to a burglary. The lesson ended with “and you don’t want to end up like Chuck Colson who had to find Jesus in prison.” Thirty-two years later and I still think about those words on at least a weekly basis.
I’m also pleased to report that my siblings and I have made it the past 30 years without getting embroiled in a national security scandal.
I know that many of you have stories about how Dad’s ministry changed your lives. As a pastor’s kid, it kind of kills me to admit this, but … I do too. Not many people know this, but I am maybe Patient–or rather, “Guest” Zero for the Father’s Heart. In the summer of 1995, I was deep into a very troubled adolescence. Mom and Dad fervently prayed about what to do with me and God told them to treat me the way he treated them, with the “Father’s heart”: unconditional love, acceptance, forgiveness, and commitment. One of the first tests of this “Father’s heart” came that July. My sisters and I had planned to go to Lollapalooza 95 at Randall’s Island. Sonic Youth and Hole were headlining along with Cypress Hill. My sister Marthe ended up not being able to go and there was no way Jackie and I were going to be allowed to attend an all-day music festival by ourselves. I was devastated. And then Dad offered to take us.
Now you might be wondering if this is the part in the eulogy where I reveal to everyone’s surprise that Dad was actually a closet indie rock fan. But no, Dad was not a cool dad. It would be an understatement to say that getting contact high while rocking out to the Mighty Mighty Bosstones was not Dad’s scene and went against all of his preferences and values. To all of our collective relief, our brother Rob took us instead. But Dad’s willingness to sacrifice his own happiness and to indulge a desire for his daughters that he definitely didn’t approve of, softened my heart. That day, I knew he loved me and it made some room in my hard heart to eventually believe that God might love me too and to put my hope in Jesus.
It’s easy to put Dad up on a pedestal. He was a man who would enter a room and fill it with his presence, without having to say a single word. When he did speak, he was a man people listened to. He could be intimidating, especially when the intense fighter in him came out. But Dad was also a human being with his own often endearing personality. Nutrageous bars became “Nutty Outrageous Bars.” The show “Judging Amy” was retitled “Amy That’s a Judge.” There were two ways to do everything, the wrong way and his way (and he was frequently right). He was a fan of Law & Order (the original), NCIS, and shows on Britbox. And there was the soft, artistic soul within him. Fiddler on the Roof was a favorite movie. Dad was a talented musician. He was proficient in the violin and piano. He once played his trumpet in Carnegie Hall and he frequently played his accordion in this very church.
Some of you may know that 15 years ago, we nearly lost Dad. In the early hours of January 14, 2009, Dad was admitted to the emergency room after a massive heart attack. The timing couldn’t have been more miraculous–if my parents had delayed 30 minutes, Dad would have died. Instead, he was quickly taken into an hours-long surgery, in a room that had, miraculously, already been prepared for him. When we were finally permitted to see him in the afternoon, he was still intubated from his surgery. I will never forget this moment. We were preoccupied with him. He, the patient, with our mother. He gestured to Jackie and to me and indicated to us to take care of our mother. It was the first thing he said after nearly dying, after hours of heart surgery. Take care of Mommy. Not a thought about himself, until he made sure Mom would be ok.
It was touch and go for several days after that heart attack. Dad had about a 3% chance of survival. We had 100 % anxiety. We could not and did not know he would live for another 14 years, 11 months and 7 days. That brush with death and the challenges of heart failure softened Dad, in the very best way. He could still be intense and he remained a fighter to the very end. But the heart attack made my father’s heart gentler. Over the past few years, Dad was frequently in and out of the hospital. Every time he went in, he would find out the names of the nursing staff and fellow patients and pray for them. Though these hospital stays were grueling, Dad was always ready to give a reason for the hope that was in him. So what is that hope? The hope that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself and not counting our sins against us. The hope that he would be able, at the end of his days, to stand before Jesus and hear the words, “well done, good and faithful servant.”
The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corithians 5, “we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.”
On that beautiful and terrible morning in November, Dad experienced the fulfillment of all his hopes, finally having his faith become sight. Though absent from this church, he is present with the Lord, now part of the great cloud of witnesses whole, perfected, and praying for each of us and all of us.
‘Well done, good and faithful servant; Enter into the joy of your lord.’