By MIREYA NAVARRO

MIAMI -- Thousands of mourners holding carnations and miniature Cuban flags crowded a Roman Catholic church Tuesday to attend a funeral Mass for Jorge Mas Canosa, the exile leader who died Sunday and was eulogized by a U.S. senator as a "simple" man who "united a community, inspired America to a great resolve, and gave his life to the cause of a free Cuba."

Mas Canosa, a self-made millionaire who was frequently criticized for what some saw as his use of authoritarian means and intolerance of opponents, chaired the influential Cuban American National Foundation and was considered a main architect of the U.S. policy of hostility toward Fidel Castro's Cuba, died of lung cancer at 58.

At a morning Mass Tuesday at St. Michael Archangel Church in Little Havana, Mas' brother, Raul, said his untimely death "while this tyrant still lives on this earth" should not be resented. "The irony of Jorge's death will only serve to make Cuba's eventual freedom even sweeter," the brother said. "Look closely in the months' ahead, for I'm sure you'll see Castro's beard becoming "mas canosa" (more gray, in Spanish).

St. Michael's, with a seating capacity of 2,000, overflowed with at least 5,000 mourners, workers at the church said. Hundreds more waited outside and joined the procession to Woodlawn Cemetery several blocks away, following the hearse carrying a coffin draped in the Cuban flag.

Those attending the service included other Cuban-American political leaders, like Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican from Miami, and hundreds of people who did not know Mas but who said they were touched by his tenacity on behalf of the Cuban exile cause since he arrived here a penniless refugee from Castro's dictatorship in 1960.

Those standing along the route of the funeral procession broke into shouts of "Adelante! Adelante!" ("Forward! Forward!") echoing what Mas' eldest son said was his father's exhortation to survivors so they continued the fight for change in Cuba.

Mas' doctors said he was conscious until the night before he died. The oldest of his three sons, Jorge Mas Jr., 34, said that until the end, his thoughts were with the three most important things in his life -- his family, God and Cuba.

Although the younger Mas has devoted his time to the family's telecommunications business, officials at the Cuban American National Foundation said he is expected to follow his father's wishes that he take a more active role in exile politics. "The mission that he started we will complete," Mas Jr. said at a news conference Sunday.

In his eulogy Tuesday, Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., a Foundation ally in Congress who considered Mas "one of the finest friends I've had in my life," echoed the pledge of family and friends to some day take Mas' remains to Cuba.

"And on that day," Torricelli said, "at rest in a free Cuba, and remembered by the people that he helped to free, it can be said -- Jorge Mas Canosa lives."