What's Up in Ave Maria: Saying goodbye to Michael Novak, our neighbor and friend

At his passing on Feb. 17, national newspapers described Michael Novak as a renowned scholar and thinker, theologian and philosopher, the author of 40 books covering a wide-range of topics, a U.S. ambassador, an adviser and friend to Pope John Paul II, Maggie Thatcher and more.

But in Ave Maria, the first way we’d describe him would be neighbor and friend.

Because he was such a friendly, humble and helpful soul around town, we could be forgiven if we would often forget just how well-known and accomplished Novak was. That’s easy enough to do with someone who has a warm smile for everyone, who prays with you at church, who chats with you at the local pub, who invites you into his home and who visits you in yours.

If in Ave Maria, one were to say, “I’m friendly with Michael Novak,” it wouldn’t be name-dropping at all, simply because he befriended so many of us.

Novak was the same with everyone that he met, tradesperson or academic. He clearly favored students, though; on any balmy Florida evening, you might see a few of them sitting around at a table outside a restaurant with him, enjoying a conversation that was truly give and take, for Novak would neither court admiration nor hold court.

Novak was a frequent provider of encouragement and help across a range of local realms. The Laub-Novak award, a project entirely of his own initiative and funding, was presented by him to outstanding instructors at Ave Maria University (AMU), among them Tim McDonnell and Catherine Pakaluk, both since transferred to Catholic University of America, Blanford Parker, Travis Curtright and Andrew Dinan. A man in whom mean spiritedness never found a toehold, Novak had the rare ability to rejoice at the success of others.

Novak established the Karen Laub-Novak Library at Donohue Academy, named for his deceased wife whose portrait hangs on its walls. Like a swan or an osprey, Novak seemed to have mated heart and soul for life with the woman he unfailingly referred to as “my dear wife,” who died in 2009. No matter how engaged in anything else, part of Novak seemed to be reposing in an interior tabernacle where he was perpetually united with her. He told my husband and me in the last interview we had with him in the spring of 2016 that he was longing to join her.

Among the many accolades that have poured out upon his death, the one that stood out for me was by Robert Royal, an associate of Novak’s who visited him in his final hours. On Feb. 18, in The National Catholic Register, Royal wrote that to each person who came to bid him goodbye, Novak would say, “God loves you and you must love one another. That is all that matters.”

Only in his passing are various Ave Maria residents coming forth with stories about how Novak helped them and their family personally. Many of us feel a certain wistfulness that he ended his teaching career at Catholic University of America instead of in Ave Maria, particularly when we recall that he moved to Ave Maria at the suggestion of Nick Healy, the first president of AMU.

Novak helped provide what the first wave of residents were hoping to find in Ave Maria, proximity with people could help stretch our minds and souls. Yes, we admire Novak for the illustrious achievements of his life, but we love him because he was such a good friend and neighbor to so many of us in Ave Maria.

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More information and other news about Ave Maria can be found in The Ave Herald, which Patricia publishes, along with her husband, David Shnaider.