The emotional Mass, a walking funeral procession and a graveside service befit a head of state -- and had the ring of a rally for a free Cuba.
''¡Adelante! ¡Adelante! ¡Adelante!''
Forward, forward, forward, people shouted, quoting Mas Canosa's last rallying cry to his family and to the Cuban American National Foundation, the exile organization he founded and led, urging them to carry on the fight -- and his dream -- of a democratic Cuba.
''I have no doubt in my mind that he's up there right now, lobbying God himself for the freedom of Cuba,'' his younger brother Raul said in his eulogy.
The powerful and charismatic exile leader and rags-to-riches millionaire businessman died Sunday at 58 after a yearlong battle with cancer. He was eulogized Tuesday in a Miami church overflowing with compatriots who wept, prayed for him and for Cuba as if Mas Canosa and the island were one and the same.
''Why did he die and the tyrant lives?'' lamented Dinoraly Simeon, 79, echoing the feelings of many. ''This is very, very sad.''
''Every separation is painful and this one more so, because it's the pain of an entire people subjected to slavery at home and to the wrenching pain of absence in exile,'' Auxiliary Bishop Agustin Roman said.
At St. Michael's Catholic Church on Flagler Street, the crowds spilled outside, and mourners stood shoulder-to-shoulder for the 11 a.m. Catholic Mass led by Roman, the icon priest of Cuban exiles who founded the bayside shrine to Our Lady of Charity, Cuba's patron saint.
Prayers, eulogies and hymns filled the church where Mas Canosa's coffin was draped with the Cuban flag. Rows of wreaths -- many in the shape of Cuban and American flags -- lined the aisles. Voices and songs blared from speakers to the spillover crowd outside and were broadcast live on television and radio to the rest of South Florida.
Members of Congress and virtually every Hispanic elected official in Miami-Dade County attended the services -- as did Cuban musicians, prominent business people and militant Cuban exile figures. The White House sent a delegation made up of Joseph Duffey, director of the U.S. Information Agency, and Maria Echaveste, assistant to the president. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright sent her condolences.
Ordinary people
He will rest in a sunny spot alongside old Miamians with last names of Silverglade, Capes and Hughes who died a decade before Mas Canosa founded the influential organization that gave the cause of Cuba a high profile in the halls of Washington.
Mas Canosa is credited with the establishment of Radio and TV Marti to beam uncensored news and information to Cuba and with the passage of the Helms-Burton legislation that tightened the economic embargo on the island. He also helped bring to South Florida thousands of Cubans stranded in third countries.
Leadership
praised
''Unjust is the death of a liberator while the tyrant lives,'' said U.S. Sen. Robert G. Torricelli, D-N.J. ''Jorge Mas Canosa wanted only for the people of Cuba to live in the liberty the world affords to all other people. Some will despair that their freedom will be postponed again, lost to yet another generation.
''But the ultimate gift of Jorge Mas Canosa,'' he added, ''was that he created a movement larger than even himself -- the resolve of the United States, the determination of the Cuban people to end the tyranny.''
Speaking about the overwhelming show of support, Raul Mas Canosa said people recognize that his brother was ''a great man, an imperfect man, but one who was the genuine article, whose convictions were real, whose passion for a free and democratic Cuba knew no bounds.''
Mas Canosa felt as comfortable dealing with a head of state as he did with ''a common laborer in one of his many companies,'' his brother said.
Liked simple
things
At the graveside service, his son Jorge Jr. remembered the grandfather who a year ago bought a Mustang convertible to take his grandchildren to the Keys, his favorite pastime. And he remembered his young father, early in exile, ''a lechero,'' a milkman who didn't let those who couldn't afford to pay for the milk go without.
During his illness, his father often told him that if being sick was the price he had to pay for his intense fight against Castro, then ''he gladly offered his body,'' Jorge Mas Jr. said.
He vowed to carry on his father's legacy and return to the foundation's flag the star that now stands outside the triangle as a symbol of the island's oppressive regime.
His father dreamed of evangelizing in the island, establishing churches ''and returning the dignity to the people,'' Mas Jr. said.
''We'll do it, papa, we'll do it,'' he vowed. ''I promise you we will finish your work.''
As he said the words, two gray Brothers to the Rescue planes thundered over the crowd.
'Always in our
hearts'
Next, a group of Vietnam Veterans took the Cuban flag from the coffin, folded it and gave it to Mas Canosa's widow, Irma. A bugler played taps, and the honor guard fired a nine-gun salute.
Before the coffin was lowered into the ground, foundation director Ninoska Perez Castellon took Cuban soil from a small glass bottle and sprinkled it over the casket. And foundation member Mely Gonzalez placed on the coffin a white rose ''for the sincere friend,'' she said, of which Jose Marti spoke in his famous poem The White Rose.
As the bronze coffin was slowly inched into the earth, the American national anthem played, followed by the Cuban, which the crowd sang, many with vigor, others softly as they wept. Silence followed as the family began to walk away, embracing each other.
''A man who has fought for his homeland never dies,'' a woman shouted, breaking the silence.
''Gracias, Mas Canosa!'' a man shouted.
''Viva Mas Canosa!'' another shouted.
''Viva Cuba libre!'' people chorused.
As many walked away along a winding road and through the iron gates to
the streets of Little Havana, some stayed behind and filled Mas Canosa's
grave with roses and Cuban flags.
Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald