Most Rev. Aloysius Joseph Hankinson, T.O.R.
(1924 - 2006)

--Fr. Anthony Criscitelli, T.O.R., provincial

We live in an age that has been witness to many great journeys-journeys on rockets that soar into space and allow men and women to walk on the surface of the moon and explore the planets and stars; journeys to the depths of the seas to recover lost treasure and explore life in the deep, black waters beneath the earth-but for all their technical sophistication, these journeys pale in the face of the journey that is our life.  Even if we have never moved beyond the town where we were born, we are all travelers and every step of the journey-for good or for ill-is unique and important and cannot be retraced.

For those without faith, life is a journey that ultimately leads nowhere and ends in a death that ushers them into a place of darkness, far from the presence of God.  In the end, it is a journey without meaning.  But for those who strive to walk by the light of faith, trusting in God rather than their own resources and knowing that there is more to the journey that what we know and see and experience her, it is a journey that leads to the life that God meant us to live from the beginning but which humankind lost through sin and selfishness.  Christ entered our world and took on our flesh precisely so that  we might live in this hope.  He reveals to us that the goal of this journey is ultimately not a place-as we so often mistakenly understand it-but to a relationship with God.

For Aloysius and for all of us, that journey began on that day of our baptism, when through water and the Holy Spirit our life was forever linked to the life of Christ.  As it was for Jesus,  this was the moment when we were given our identity as a beloved son or daughter of God, and when we became shares in the mission of Jesus to proclaim the reign of God by witness of our lives more than our words or deeds.

Year later, in this very church, Aloysius took a further step on the journey of his life.  Seeking to walk more closely with Jesus and intensify the vocation give him through baptism, he professed vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience promising, like our Holy Father St. Francis, to live and Christ-without material wealth, obedient to the voice of God, the Church, and his Franciscan community holding back nothing and giving himself totally to the God who gave himself totally to him.  And it is his fidelity to these solemn promises of baptism and religious profession that will determine the journey's end-for him and for all of us.  When we pass through the door of death and stand in the presence of God, it is on this that we shall be judged, for we leave everything else behind us in death-all that we cling to in this life for identity and meaning.  And although the part of the journey that leads from this life to the next can be fraught with fear and anxiety, if we have lived by faith, the last steps in the journey will be no harder than any that preceded them and we will find ourselves, at journey's end, in the presence of God who is always more faithful to us than we are to him and to ourselves.

Reliant as we all are on the mercy and faithfulness of God, may our brother Aloysius rest in peace and, at journey's end may he find himself in the place that has been prepared for him!

Death Notices