January 2021

LIVING WITH LIMITS Friar Bob Hutmacher, ofm August 1963. The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad was a mainstay of transportation for people who lived in the upper half of western Illinois; it was part of a rail network that was hooked up with lines all the A couple of my friends from grade school were way to Texas and west to Wyoming. The also going to St. Joseph Seminary. But this was Quincy station in 1963 was across the not for a couple of weeks at summer camp! We Mississippi River in West Quincy, Missouri. would not see our families until Christmas That August was and still is very significant in vacation in December! I honestly do not recall my life. A beginning! saying goodbye or hugging my parents, three th When I was in 6 grade I knew I wanted brothers and little sister. I felt adventurous and to be a Franciscan Friar. Our parish in Quincy very frightened at the same time. and Quincy College (now University) were both The train cars in 1963 were an ugly dark staffed by many friars so I “grew up with green that added a sinister layer of mystery to brown.” The friars all appeared to be happy and the event. We said some kind of goodbyes and I wanted to share their happiness; plus, I’d boarded. One student two years older than my become enamored with Francis of Assisi. It was classmates and I and took us under his wing. truly that simple. I received permission from my The train pulled out and we watched that large parents to go to the minor seminary in group of people disappear in the distance. th Westmont when I finished 8 grade. Yes, it was Crossing the Mississippi at night on a a very different Church, a very different world. train bridge was not exactly comforting because th Girls also left home after 8 grade to join there wasn’t an overhead structure and no religious orders for women. railings we could see; we just clanked and Back to the C., B. & Q. In those days rocked above black waters. Going back into the train for Chicago left West Quincy at 2:30 Illinois was a relief. We passed the lights of a.m., in the dark of night. There were at least 25 sleepy Quincy and entered the veil of complete other boys going to the seminary from our darkness. I suppose the first hour was fun parish of St. Francis and almost all of us came because we had no formal supervision and could from large families, so there must have been do what young high school kids loved to do. nearly 200 people at the station. I remember Then … clearly how dark it was with all those people It was about 4:00 a.m. and sleep jabbering away about many things, mothers overtook most of the group. It didn’t snag me grabbing their sons, and my 13-year-old heart right away, though. I was enamored by many was doing something it hadn’t done before: it things. West-central Illinois is corn and fluttered! The thought of being a friar was soybean country so the fields are huge. We always a source of joy. The reality of what it passed little towns like Ursa and Payson and took to become a friar, though, had become then basically nothing until Macomb. In painful. The voices all blended into an aural between the towns I found it fascinating that the blur as we heard the train come into the station occasional cluster of lights was a farm far off in out of the darkness. the distance. People actually lived in those How does a young boy say goodbye to clusters, far from neighbors. I remember being the only people he knew were always with him? mesmerized by how vast the great Midwestern I barely remember being excited about leaving. plains were and felt so 13, so very alone in those endless fields of corn. What had I done with my separations and death – I don’t need to delineate life? So alone in the dark! any further. We’ve all lived with so many I had made a major break with my limits, so much pain and social, economic and network of familiarity. No brothers and sister spiritual battering that one wonders if this train sharing the bathroom. No Dad to drive us ride will ever pull into the Station of Rebirth. around town for this and that and more. And no Part of a homily I offered on the Fourth Mom. No food in our little cozy kitchen. No Sunday of Advent was to encourage people to laundry. No hugs. No……. a MAJOR transition not dwell on all the things we’ve lost, all the in life at 13! I did it for God and Francis, the parts of life we must live without for now. new role model for my very young heart, my Dwell, rather, on what we DO HAVE. No one innocent little life. can ever, ever take away our faith in a loving, It was not at all easy to be far away from forgiving God. No one can touch our faith my family. My first night in the dorm (with except our own selfishness when that beast rears about 100 other kids) was completely weird. I its ugly head and takes over our commitment to recall looking out the windows and seeing God and the human family. No one! A brief headlights on a distant highway; I was so look at history verifies the strength and power discombobulated that I considered sneaking out that women and men hold within themselves. to catch a ride back to Quincy. There were over How did people in Britain live through the 300 students there in four years of high school onslaught of German air raids? How did and two years of college. Strange names, odd millions of people who were not “perfect foods, a regimented schedule, at least three or Aryans” survive the horrors of the “perfect four disciplinarians and only a few familiar solution?” How have the families of 323,000+ faces. But choir, band, orchestra and some art victims of Covid 19 (as of Dec. 23, 2020) made classes helped me shape a new course in life as it through the prettiness and glitz of Christmas an artist. Chapel services four or five times a with some semblance that life is still good? day, serving at endless Masses (we had ten side How did we live without parties, shopping altars plus the high altar) and a particular image sprees and large family gatherings? We did not of King David with a harp and a large statue of choose to ride the Pandemic Express into the Francis gradually shaped my life with God and darkness of 2020. What we have chosen to do is set me on a path that brought me here to St. learn that science can enhance and save life. Peter’s. I fell in love with Francis in 1961 and We are learning that living with limits is not the am still humbled that God called me to be a friar end of life, that limits can and do bring the and ordained minister. But I have found that human family new-found insights as to what is happiness I’d longed for in sixth grade simply most important for happiness. by living with limits. And my life has been There’s a delightful yet poignant story extraordinarily rich in myriad ways because of from The Legend of three Companions that may those limits and the abundance of God’s love. offer a fuller understanding of life with limits. 2020 was the deadliest year in the During the first days of his conversion, Francis history of the United States. The entire was fiercely ridiculed in Assisi for begging for population has, because of many factors, been stones to repair the chapel of San Damiano. The torn asunder. Nine months and more to come priest who cared for the chapel was warm and have placed constraints and untold suffering on accepting. One day, when he noticed what the our entire world population. We are all what I priest was preparing food for him to eat, call touch deprived. Our liturgies have been Francis said to himself: “Will you find a priest scaled down, stripped of musical and ritual like this wherever you go who will offer you elements; our daily lives, routines, jobs and any such human kindness? This is not the life of the economic freedom or growth have all been poor that you have chosen. As a beggar, going crushed, families torn by early, horrid from door to door, you should carry a bowl in your hand, and, driven by necessity, you should of us in Church ministry now know that we can collect the scraps they give you. This is how accompany people in their faith development you must live willingly, out of love for Him who through Zoom sessions. was born poor, lived very poorly in this world, There is great truth that living with remained naked and poor on the cross, and was limits can bring new life, new perspectives for buried in a tomb belonging to another. the human heart. Francis taught (and still As a result, one teaches) us in dramatic yet concrete ways that day Francis took a when we accept limits and let God take over, bowl and went door life is remarkably rich.

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