CHARLOTTE — For 35 years, Deacon James Hamrlik has been a pioneer in the Church in western North Carolina.
He is one of the first permanent deacons in the Diocese of Charlotte as well as one of the founding families and only original clergy still serving at St. Matthew Church in Charlotte. And he continues to think ahead as he works toward becoming a board-certified chaplain to minister to the aging.
Deacon Hamrlik was ordained in October 1983 for the Diocese of Joliet, Ill. He and his wife Mary Anne have two children and four grandchildren. He has a self-described adventurous spirit that has taken him to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and enabled him to tackle the base camp trek of Mount Everest.
“It’s all been very moving,” Deacon Hamrlik says, reflecting on his past 35 years of ministry as a deacon. “I find that what the Lord has done is open up all kinds of doors I never thought were there. The doors opened, and I just walked through. I’ve had a lot of very moving moments in my life. I thank the Lord for allowing me to get to those stages and be able to do all I have.”
Four decades ago, Deacon Hamrlik wasn’t even sure what a deacon did during Mass.
“I familiarized myself, and the more I learned the more it sort of snowballed into me feeling like I was being called in that direction,” he recalls.
After years of training and formation, he was ordained a permanent deacon. A few months later, Deacon Hamrlik learned that his employer was transferring him to Charlotte. His first assignment was at St. Gabriel Church in Charlotte, where he served for three years.
“It was a relatively large parish for the area and the time,” he says. “For whatever reason, I thought I’d like to get to a smaller parish. I was looking around and heard about a new parish happening in the farmland of south Charlotte, and Monsignor (Joseph) Kerin (the pastor at the time) was looking for a deacon.”
A couple hundred families who would become the founding members of St. Matthew Parish were meeting for Mass in a movie theater at the time.
“I became part of the founding families. As St. Matthew Parish grew, I became a charter member of the Knights of Columbus. I just kept growing with the parish itself,” Deacon Hamrlik says.
Over the past 30 years, Deacon Hamrlik has been involved in just about every ministry at St. Matthew Church, says its current pastor, Father Patrick Hoare. He is currently assisting couples seeking annulments and with marriage preparation in addition to preaching during Masses.
“He’s been the one person who’s really been here since the beginning on the staff and clergy. He’s our link to that part of our history,” Father Hoare notes.
As St. Matthew Church grew over the years, Deacon Hamrlik spent a lot of that time as its sole deacon, preaching at eight to 10 Masses each weekend.
“The interesting aspect is, about the first half of the time I’ve been here I was the only deacon,” he says. “Even though the parish was growing from 300 to 600 to 1,000 to 3,000, I was the only deacon. My wife and I would start a program, get it up and running, and then in most cases have someone who graduated from the program to take it over. We kept doing that over and over again.”
The south Charlotte parish now boasts more than 11,000 families and is reportedly the largest Catholic parish in the United States. Five other deacons have joined Deacon Hamrlik in serving the parish.
Being a deacon is a true calling for Deacon Hamrlik. The key is a personal relationship with God, he emphasizes.
“It’s very meaningful because if you’re in tune with God – with a personal relationship with Him developed through prayer and in meditation – you understand that doors are open or closed. The ones that are closed, even though you want them to be open, you follow the path that the Lord wants you to follow. And you find that all sorts of wonderful things start to happen in your life and to those you are ministering to,” he says.
While Deacon Hamrlik was ordained shortly before the first class of permanent deacons in the Diocese of Charlotte was in 1983, he is often considered as part of the founding deacon class.
Deacon Hamrlik is continuing his journey as a deacon by completing Clinical Pastoral Education, which is learning to minister to the sick or dying. He has spent 10-15 weeks at a time at hospitals over the past five years in an effort to apply to be a board-certified chaplain. Most recently, he completed a stint at Emory Hospital in Atlanta.
As the Baby Boomer generation retires, ages and dies, retirement homes, hospitals and hospices are in need of more people to provide spiritual guidance, he notes. He hopes he may be able to help fill that need.
“That would be rewarding. Being a board-certified chaplain, you understand death and dying. You can help people going through the end stages of their life,” he says. “Having someone to help spiritually could make it easier.”
— Kimberly Bender, Online reporter