Father Alan Hartway, C.PP.S.: December 16, 1948 – July 1, 2022

Sep 8, 2022

by Fr. Joe Nassal, C.PP.S.

Minister of the Word

On the morning of July 1, 2022, the Feast of the Precious Blood, Alan Hartway wrote, “Today the Missionaries of the Precious Blood rejoice in the mystical wine from the garden of En-Gedi that becomes for us the Blood of Jesus, which animates our community to understand deeply the value of human blood and life in the view of the Father Creator.” 

Sometime that evening, Alan died of a heart attack. It is significant that Alan died on our feast day because he was passionate and committed to our charism of proclaiming reconciliation and renewal in the blood of Christ through the ministry of the Word.

Alan had a deep love for scripture and for language. He brought these gifts together in his blog “Vineyards of En-Gedi: Homiletic Explorations into Communion, Community, and Evangelization.” Alan was a brilliant linguist. He knew Greek and could give a detailed explanation to the meaning and context of the scriptures, which enhanced his ministry of the Word. He also had a facility for languages, and for several years, he celebrated Mass in Spanish while also preaching for Unbound. Tim Deveney, director of Precious Blood Volunteers who once worked for Unbound scheduling preachers around the country, told me the staff at Unbound would always look forward to hearing Alan’s recap of his weekend assignment. His review often included colorful highlights of people he met, rectories where he stayed, or incidents that left Tim and the staff in stitches. 

No doubt some of his stories were embellished to some degree. Alan took liberal license in his storytelling, believing facts should never get in the way of a good tale! Not that the stories weren’t true. Alan just made a distinction between true stories and truth stories! He enjoyed holding an audience, whether it was the congregation at Mass or students in a classroom, captivated and engaged with details only Alan could deliver.

A Creative Pastor

Alan’s sense of humor, his bible study groups, and his preaching made him popular with his parishioners. On the 40th anniversary of his ordination, Alan penned a letter to the people of Guardian Angels Parish in Mead, Colorado, where he was pastor at the time. 

“I largely see the pastoral role as one of being an animator who nudges, pushes, pulls, coddles, enables, encourages, promotes collaboration at every level,” he wrote. “Part of this work is to be the mediator, to bring otherwise distant people together in new ways.”

When he was pastor at St. Mary’s Church in Garden City, Kansas, there was a woman in the parish whose faith and truth-telling he admired. Alan considered her prophetic—not in the sense of seeing visions but rather in speaking truth to power. She was not afraid to tell him the truth, so he invited her to serve on the parish council as the prophetic voice to keep the leadership of the parish grounded in the vision of Vatican II. Alan was deeply committed to the renewal of the church initiated by Saint Pope John XXIII. This, too, is embedded in the charism of our congregation and explicit in the vision of our becoming a new creation as one province of Missionaries and Companions in the United States.

Because of his intellect and his size, Alan was an imposing figure. He could be intimidating. But he welcomed and appreciated those who would stand up to him. He relished a good conversation on important issues confronting the church, community, and society. Of course, his linguistic skills were not only capable of building up but also of tearing down. If you dared to enter a verbal squabble with Alan, you had better wear full body armor because as Cher once famously sang, “Words are like weapons; they wound sometimes.”

He was not afraid to preach about social issues from the perspective of scriptures and Catholic Social Teaching. In the description of his blog, Alan quoted philosopher Reinhold Niebuhr’s famous advice that a preacher should preach “with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.” One of the more memorable examples of this is when he was pastor at Garden City. An epidemic of gun violence was plaguing the city, so one weekend at all the Sunday Masses, he invited parishioners to bring their guns the following weekend and hand them in to be destroyed. During an altar call that next weekend, several people came forward to relinquish their weapons.

Love for Community

In the last reflection for his blog, Alan wrote: “Life has value for us because it is not about the money, but about relationship.”

Alan loved the community. He was a member of the faculty at Naropa University in Boulder and later was pastor at Guardian Angels in Mead. As a member of the first graduating class at Precious Blood Seminary in Liberty, he wore that distinction proudly. 

In February 2020, at one of the last gatherings of the members of the Kansas City Province at our Renewal Center in Liberty, Alan reminded us that he entered Precious Blood Seminary as a freshman in 1963, two years before the American Province was divided into three in 1965 and the Kansas City Province was born. So, when he entered the high school seminary, he was a student for the American Province. Now he will also be remembered as the first member of the newly formed United States Province to die.

In his first assignment, Alan served the community as a teacher and director of seminarians at Precious Blood Seminary. He later was director of formation and director of publications for the former Kansas City Province. For several years, he also coordinated our Provincial Assemblies. He was the coordinator of the Assembly celebrating the 25th anniversary of the province in 1990, and he asked me to write the words of a song to celebrate it. On the day he died, in the closing paragraph of the final reflection of his blog, he referenced the “Song of Liberation”: “In our community hymns we sing of being marked and called by the blood of Christ.”

An Excellent Teacher and Chef

Whether he was instructing high school students at his alma mater, graduate students at Naropa, or adult faith formation classes in parishes where he served, Alan was passionate about education, about expanding hearts and minds. He was especially proud of his time at Naropa, when he was the only Catholic priest teaching at the Buddhist-sponsored university. The study of and the search for common ground among world religious was a ministry of reconciliation for Alan. What can we learn from one another? He had a great reverence for other religious traditions, especially Buddhism, even as he was committed to Catholicism. He understood and practiced the true meaning of “catholic” as universal. 

Alan not only feasted on God’s Word but also enjoyed preparing a feast for his friends. The table became a symbol of Alan’s view of how to live in the world. Hospitality, another important quality of the charism of our community, was important to him. There was always room at the table for honest dialogue and the exchange of ideas. He believed placing good food and fine wine in front of people begins to break down barriers.

As a gourmet cook, he loved trying new recipes. Most, like the “tur-duc-ken” (turkey, duck, and chicken stuffed together) he made for Thanksgiving or his beef Wellington, became legendary. But every now and then, his use of spices would cause diners to consume ample glasses of water to put out the fire. One such meal he made with curry when four of us gathered at Estes Park. While Alan was getting something from the kitchen, one of our friends quietly passed grape jelly under the table to cut the curry and calm the fire in our mouths and stomachs. 

For several years when Alan was pastor at Garden City, we would vacation in Estes Park. Good friends of his at the parish had a cabin on the Big Thompson River. As I wrote or read on the porch, Alan would be in the kitchen, listening to NPR and preparing a memorable meal. Now Alan finds a place at the table on God’s holy mountain that one of his favorite prophets, Isaiah, envisioned—a table where the Lord of the Feast has prepared a delicious banquet of rich food and fine wines. Oh, the stories that will be told around that table!

So, rest in peace and enjoy the feast, Alan. May the joy of the kingdom you preached and wrote about often be even better than you imagined.

A Lenten Journey Towards Reconciliation

Mar 11, 2021

by Fr. Bill Nordenbrock, C.PP.S.

“So, what are you going to do for Lent?”

That is not a question that I hear as often these days, but there was a time when that was not an unusual conversation starter for Catholics as Lent approached. Sort of like asking someone if they made any New Year’s resolutions; it was an indicator that Catholics took seriously the possibility that Lent could be a time of renewal and personal transformation.

When I was younger, the answer that nearly everyone gave to that question was about making sacrifices and giving something up. Acts of penance are still part of the recommended observance, although often in current teaching the suggestion is that penance be combined with the giving of alms, transforming the foregoing of dessert from a mere diet into a religious observance.

Lent is also a liturgical season which has a particular invitation to reflect on reconciliation. Mostly, the concern is for sinners to be reconciled with God and not so much a concern for sinners to be reconciled with each other. In a ministry of reconciliation, it is important to maintain the connection between the two. One helpful image is found in the cross where both the horizontal and vertical dimensions are essential. When we link acts of penance with the giving of alms, we are making that connection. When we are motivated by a realization that our over consumption is at the expense of others, then penance and alms giving is act of solidarity with the poor and can be personally transforming.

For many, “going to confession” is also a part of the plan for Lent. We celebrate the sacrament, and we ask for a “fresh start,” with the hope that the grace of the sacrament will help us to overcome those sinful tendencies that have brought us to the sacrament. That sacrament takes on amplified meaning when the desire for forgiveness flows out of a sincere desire to be and live differently going forward. Then the sacrament can be a transforming act of grace.

The essential connection between horizontal and vertical dimensions of reconciliation are most clearly articulated in St. Paul’s words given to the community in Corinth.

This means that if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old order has passed away; now all is new! All this has been done by God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. I mean that God, in Christ, was reconciling the world to himself, not counting humankind’s transgression against them, and that he has entrusted the message of reconciliation to us. This makes us ambassadors for Christ, God as it were appealing through us. (2 Cor 5:17-20a)

Above all, we need to rejoice in the gift of reconciliation given to us, but like all gifts that God bestows on us, that gift becomes a commission. God makes “re-gifting” a command. St. Paul heard faithfully God’s command: I reconcile you and now you become my ambassador and spread this gift throughout the world. And St. Paul wanted his readers to know that they have been given the same gift and commission.

When I celebrate the sacrament of confession, as one confessing or as a confessor with others, I try to share the truth of reconciliation as both a gift and a commission. When we go to confession, we celebrate very well the first part, that God has forgiven us, but it takes a conscious effort to include the second part of the God’s work into the sacrament. As I leave the confession giving thanks to God for the sacrament, my thoughts should be: God has forgiven me – who do I need to forgive? God has reconciled me – where does God send me as an ambassador for Christ?

Precious Blood people should hear the invitation to reflect on reconciliation during Lent. Not just to come to a greater understanding of this aspect of our charism, but to allow our Lenten observances to help transform us into a reconciling presence. So as this season begins, the question to ask might be: How will Lent be a time when I journey deeper into our charism? How can Lent be a time to more fully embody our charism?

In the ministry of reconciliation, we have learned that an ambassador of Christ proclaiming the message of reconciliation must be radically hospitable and skillful in the practice of accompaniment.

Radical hospitality is about lovingly making room to receive people as they are, warts and all. Sometimes that is by offering a welcoming physical space, but in the ministry of reconciliation is it more often about creating the emotional space for people to be welcomed without judgement. Are we willing to welcome into our life and “space” those who are not like us? Can those of different ethnicity or nation of origin find in a us a place where they are safe and can be expressive of their cultural identity? Real hospitality is dependent on our willingness to see what is positive in the “other” and to welcome those differences, recognizing that their giftedness is a gift to us.

During this Lenten season, one sign of the times that demands to be noticed is that polarization is a dominant characteristic in U.S. culture. Seemingly, across the board from politics to religion, dialogue has been replaced by dueling position statements. Perhaps this Lent, as Precious Blood people, we can make a practice of not writing off another’s opinion until we know why they care about their opinion; until we know the value that they are protecting in their opinion. This will require that we are radically hospitable, making space for another by presuming that they are of good intentions and that they are guided by values, values that we may share even if we don’t share their opinion on the matter that is brought to the dialogue.

Lent is a time for renewal and reconciliation, where religious practice can help us to remember and respond to a call for personal transformation. How can your religious practices during this Lent cultivate within you the attitudes and skill that will make you a reconciling presence in the Church and the world?

[This article appeared in the New Wine Press, February 2008. Fr. Nordenbrock welcomes your comments and questions. He can be contacted at bill.nordenbrock@gmail.com]