“For her it was always, ‘what can I do to help a group or a person or an organization understand better,’ ” Lucas Drake said. “That’s why we talked about dying well.”
When Bishop Gerald Barnes sat with Drake just days before her passing, she had indicated that she wanted her funeral Mass, and the worship aide in particular, to evangelize those in attendance who may not be regular church goers.
“Joyce was a teacher of the faith at her core,” said Bishop Barnes. “She did it splendidly and tirelessly in service of the people of our Diocese, and she continued to teach us in her passing from this life to the next.”
It was also said that Drake’s refusal to let terminal cancer dim her joyful spirituality, even at the end, set a powerful example for friends and colleagues of the Catholic journey in death and dying. To her last moments, Drake was enjoying the simple pleasures she loved.
“She always made sure to take the time to enjoy the sweet things in life,” Lucas Drake said. “So it was a blessing that her last day was having breakfast, solving a puzzle and listening to National Public Radio.”
Drake came to work for the Diocese as a coordinator of the Parish Ministry Formation Program in the Ministry Formation Institute (MFI) in 2002 after two decades in the health insurance industry. Four years later she became Director of the MFI and the adult faith formation program, regarded as a flagship of the Diocese, blossomed under her leadership.
She led the establishment of a partnership between the MFI and Loyola University of New Orleans that offered Master’s Degree and Certificated programs in Theology. Recognizing the barrier to participation that the huge geography of the Diocese presented to those in faraway parishes, Drake worked with the Diocesan Office of Information Technology Services to establish distance learning sites at parishes that allowed the teaching of the MFI’s four-year Coordinator of Ministries Formation Program (CMFP) through video conferencing.
Her involvement in national boards and conferences on Catholic lay formation brought widespread attention to the MFI from all over the country and the world. After a conversation she had with officials of the Archdiocese of Wellington, New Zealand about the MFI and the Pastoral Coordinator model of leadership used in some parishes of the Diocese of San Bernardino, the Archbishop of Wellington, John Dew, decided to come to San Bernardino to see it for himself.
In 2012 Drake became Director of the Ministry of Educational Services, the largest of the nine departments in the Pastoral Center. She also headed the Diocesan Education Initiative, an effort to strengthen dialogue between the Church and public school systems and universities, and offer increased parenting education.
While regarded for both visionary ideas and organizational skills, friends and colleagues say Joyce Drake understood well the old adage, “we plan, God laughs.”
“She sought answers in contemplation,” said Amanda Alexander, who worked closely with Drake in the MFI, “rather than try to force solutions.”
Drake would become an accomplished teacher of the faith after her own conversion to Catholicism as an adult.
She was born in Glendale, the only child of two disabled parents, and raised a Baptist. She married young and lived for a time in Spain while her husband, who was serving in the Navy, was stationed there. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Maryland in 1981. Lucas said his mother, while joyful and always people-oriented, had a determined streak, exemplified when she chose to take a final exam in college while in the early stages of labor with him. “She pushed herself to the edge of challenge,” he said.
Joyce and Lucas moved to Fontana in 1987 and during his elementary school years she was introduced to Catholicism by a friend who had been raised in the Church. Attracted first by the vibrant spirituality at Our Lady of Fatima parish in San Bernardino, Drake ultimately found a spiritual home at St. George Parish in Fontana. Once confirmed a Catholic, she immersed herself in many parish ministries, serving as a lector, a catechist, a member of both the parish school board and Pastoral Council, and Adult Confirmation Coordinator. She would eventually earn a Master’s Degree in Pastoral Theology from Loyola Marymount University.
Her talents and leadership in the ministry of faith formation eventually caught the attention of Diocesan officials including Sister Nadine McGuiness, CSJ, who was then the Director of the MFI. After decades of working for Blue Shield and then Electronic Data Systems, Drake accepted a job offer from the Diocese to educate lay Catholics so they could assume a greater role in ministry leadership at parishes. In her final conversation with Bishop Barnes she would call it “the best job I ever had,” he said.
Her students said she guided them gently but surely toward a deeper knowledge of their faith.
“She wasn’t judgmental and she really encouraged me,” said Richard Gutierrez, recalling classes he took from Drake in the CMFP program. “I only spent a few moments with her but I felt like I knew her a long time.”
To wit, Drake took more satisfaction in the relationships and encounters she had with people than in professional accomplishments and accolades, her son says.
“For my Mom, it was about the people she was with and the stories they shared.”
Many of those people packed Our Lady of the Rosary Cathedral in San Bernardino on April 12 for her Mass of Resurrection. She had told friends in the weeks before her passing that she was looking forward to “dancing with Jesus.”
In tribute to that vision, her Mass concluded with a liturgical dance performance as the congregation sang “Lord of the Dance.”
“They cut me down and I leapt up high
I am the life that will never, never die
I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me
I am the Lord of the dance, said he”