DETROIT — During the 36 years he ran Subiaco Retreat House, Silvestrine Benedictine Fr. Daniel Homan welcomed more than 140,000 youngsters to the youth retreat center on the grounds of St. Benedict Monastery in Oxford.
Fr. Homan died August 9 of cardiac arrest and extensive heart damage. He was 68.
He was” a very good man” who had a real ability to relate to both young people and adults, said Laura Piccone-Hanchon, a regional youth ministry coordinator for the Archdiocese of Detroit and former youth minister at St. Colette Parish in Livonia.
“He had a pastoral sense about him, and when you were around him, you felt cared for. Anyone was fortunate who could call him a friend, as I felt I could,” she said.
Fr. Homan’s carefully prepared talks were always very inspirational for both the youth and the adults who accompanied them to the retreat center, Piccone-Hanchon continued.
“His messages were also so relatable and current, because he did a lot of homework to make sure he was current about youth culture and was really relating to the young people,” she said.
And Piccone-Hanchon added, “I sought him out myself more than once for personal advice. I always felt the presence of God through him, and if I had a son, I’d want him to be like Fr. Dan.”
Terri Konwinski, coordinator of youth ministry at St. Paul of Tarsus in Clinton Township, like Piccone-Hanchon, experienced Fr. Homan’s retreats both as a teen herself and later as a youth minister.
“I took teens to Subiaco in hopes they would have a similar experience to that I had when I was a teen at St. Thomas More Parish in Troy, that in would arouse in them the same enthusiasm that led me to answer God’s call to work in ministry,” Konwinski said.
She said the Subiaco Retreat House, which Fr. Homan founded, “is a place where teens can get away from all the noise that happens in their life — a place where they can reflect and start investing in themselves again and in their relationship with God.”
Konwinski said that teens especially cited the reconciliation they experienced through Fr. Homan: “They truly felt healed again and back in communion with God.”
Even into the last year of his life, Fr. Homan continued his efforts to keep current with what teens were thinking and doing. “He never stopped trying to help teens find God,” she added.
Daniel James Homan was born Aug. 23, 1942 in Detroit to Frank and Elizabeth Homan.
He joined the Silvestrine Benedictine Order in 1960 at St. Benedict Monastery, and was ordained to the priesthood June 7, 1969.
He served as associate pastor of St. Scholastica Parish in Detroit, and was conventual prior of the Silvestrine Benedictine in America from 1990 to 2009.
Fr. Homan is survived by two brothers, John (Julie) and Martin (Sharon); two sisters, Clare (John) Baxter and Mary (Lawrence) Paruch; and by eight nieces and nephews and 15 great-nieces and great-nephews.
He was predeceased by his parents and by a sister, Lisa Homan.
A funeral Mass was celebrated August 13 at St. Joseph Church Lake Orion. Entombment was in the St. Benedict Monastery Mausoleum.
Memorials to Subiaco Retreat House Raise the Roof Fund c/o St. Benedict Monastery, 2711 E. Drahner Road, Oxford 48370.
