It was a tearful scene at St. Joseph’s Proto-Cathedral last Sunday, as Father Bill Hammer announced that he will shortly be leaving to serve at another parish.
The news came as a shock to both Father Bill and the congregation, as he has been in Bardstown at St. Joe’s for the better part of a decade and was expecting at least two more years.
I was not alone, I’m sure, in experiencing a touch of vertigo as my mind flashed back to the countless committee meetings Father Bill had attended, the sacramental celebrations, the times he had introduced those about to be baptized to the congregation, and the times he led us in saying goodbye to those of our congregation who were going on to that eternal reward baptism promises.
I reflected on how he shrewdly fielded the hundreds of crises that are a part of a small-town parish, in which everyone knows everyone, and so every person is affected — for good or for ill — by what the pastor says and his actions toward others.
This reflection on Father Bill’s ministry extended outward as I began to see with some clarity all of the spiritual mentors who have, at various times, formed me for my current ministry as campus minister and teacher at Bethlehem High School.
My heart wells with gratitude for those like Father Bill who taught me how to be a man after God’s heart. Too little do we say thank you to those who planted the seeds of faith and watered them with great hope, faith and charity.
I thank my youth ministers, Todd Shuck and Troy Shelton, for teaching me how to talk to God, hear his voice and follow it no matter the cost. I thank my uncles, Bill Logston, Bobby Ray Hamilton and George Graves who, through countless hours of service to their community, taught me the meaning of Catholic charity.
I thank Joe Heitzman for giving me a model of excellence in the classroom and how to seek it genuinely in community. I thank Father Ricky and Brenda Brown for teaching me how to receive forgiveness from Christ when I fail to meet my standard of excellence.
I thank Father Stephen Dominic Hayes who, true to the Dominican spirit, taught me how to actually think about the world, and to Father Murray who taught me how to transfer those thoughts into humble action. I thank my grandmas, Carrie Young and Ernestine Hamilton, whose countless rosaries for a lost grandson taught me prayer is the daily battle that wins the war.
Thanks to my dad who upset early morning plans to hunt down escaped cows for an oblivious neighbor, thus teaching his son exactly what it is to love one’s neighbor. And thank you, Mom, for fighting your wayward son so many mornings to get him into church, hoping that some trick of light through stained glass windows would make an eternal impression that would bring him back home. God be praised, it did!
The list could be multiplied a thousand fold when I think of all our priests and their bravery in the fight for good: Father Matt Hardesty, Father Michael Wimsatt, Father Jason Harris, Father David Carr, Father David Cockson, Father Chris Rhodes, Father Kevin McGrath, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, and, yes, Father Bill Hammer.
Last Sunday, as I saw the heartfelt, genuine tears both Father Bill and the parishioners shed at the announcement, there came the sudden realization that at St. Bernadette’s there were probably equal tears being shed over Father Terry Bradshaw’s announcement that he would shortly be coming here to St. Joe’s to pick up the torch that Father Bill is laying down.
All these leaders, their voices rise and combine with the multitude of spiritual mentors who have touched all of you now reading this article, forming a chorus of those who are and who have gone before. This chorus echoes in eternity of the church, the great family of God — their song fights back the darkness of a world that can seem just a little darker when others fail us, and it encourages us to sing our own parts well.
Take time today to think about those mentors and leaders whose life has been a testament to you of the heroism of every day sacrifice.
Write them an e-mail or letter, give them a call. Let them know of your gratitude and your prayers for them in the work they do. Let them know that they have not run a race in vain because their sacrifice has changed your life for the better.
Stuart Hamilton is a teacher and a campus minister at Bethlehem High School in Bardstown, Ky.
