By EMMALEE ITALIA
Contributing Editor
Parishioners, friends and fellow Franciscans gathered July 26 in St. Peter Church, Point Pleasant Beach, to lay to rest Conventual Franciscan Father Robert Curtis Kreml, former pastor, during a Mass of Christian Burial.
“Like St. Francis, [Father] Curt understood that nothing was lost, and everything was gained, when as a friar priest and pastor, he shared the responsibility and the joy with you, bringing the Good News to others in this world,” said Conventual Franciscan Father Jude DeAngelo. “Curt empowered others to discover Christ within themselves, and then to share that joy of discovery with others.”
Conventual Franciscan Father Michael Heine, minister provincial of Our Lady of the Angels Province, of which Father Kreml was a member, was principal celebrant of the Mass, with Father DeAngelo serving as homilist.
“Two days ago, I heard a still small voice say to me, ‘Jude, you can’t push against the river; do what you can,” Father DeAngelo said. “Those were two favorite phrases that Father Curt used to say to us – and I recognized immediately that it was his voice.
“My last year of seminary, [Father] Curt was my spiritual director, a relationship I was always grateful for,” Father DeAngelo continued. “But as the years went by, it was his friendship and brotherhood I came to treasure even more. In Curt’s joyful presence, I always felt that I was his brother; my opinion mattered, he listened and he questioned, and he asked a challenge in his own way … But I always knew I was loved. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s had that experience.”
A Road Less Travelled
Father Kreml, who died July 4 in Port St. Lucie, Fla., at age 77, was born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1946, and raised in Phoenix and Las Vegas. After earning a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of San Francisco in 1968, he enlisted in the Army, stationed in Germany for three years and serving in Vietnam before his honorable discharge – an experience that Father DeAngelo said must have shaped his choice to become a priest.
“Any man or woman who has fought in a war, no matter how just the cause may be, has seen the empty show of evil,” Father DeAngelo noted, referencing the Gospel reading for the Mass that describes Christ’s easy yoke and light burden.
“I think it caused him to reflect on life’s meaning … He knew that the pursuit of power and materialism was not the yoke he wanted to carry in life, not the lens he wanted to see this world through,” he continued. “So, he took on the yoke of Christ as a son of St. Francis, a man who saw all creation as good, who rejoiced in the gifts of others, as sisters and brothers, a saint who understood that the Cross of Christ was easier to carry than the hidden glamour of the evil that so many of us pursued in life.”
Father Kreml entered the novitiate of the Conventual Franciscans in Lake Forest, Illinois in September, 1972, making his first profession of vows July 28, 1973. He completed his theological studies at St. Anthony-on-Hudson Seminary, Rensselaer, N.Y., professing solemn vows Oct. 7, 1975, before earning his master of divinity degree in 1976. He was ordained to the priesthood July 17, 1976.
Father Kreml served three years as the assistant pastor of Assumption Parish, Syracuse. From 1978 to 1982, he attended St. Patrick’s College in Ireland, earning his licentiate in sacred theology, a degree he used as a professor of moral theology at St. Anthony-on-Hudson. In 1988, he began an eight-year tenure as chaplain and campus minister at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, N.C; during this time, he served a term as director of campus ministry for the Diocese of Charlotte.
After taking a sabbatical year, Father Kreml was director of candidates in Philadelphia from 1997 to 2005, when he became pastor of St. Peter Parish, Point Pleasant Beach, ministering there through 2011. Returning to formation work for a few years, he became the co-director of the post-novitiate program in Silver Spring, MD. In 2014, he began his last assignment, as parochial vicar of St. Lucie Parish.
Ready for What’s Next
“The Cross is the yoke that we are given, that burden that we assume,” Father DeAngelo emphasized. “We are harnessed together to pull the plow of the Gospel as Christ plants the seeds of love, truth and community in the field of this world – a field that at times can be filled with rocks of fear, and weeds of mistrust, but also a field that has rich soil – soil of many hearts and faith-filled communities.
“I believe that this image of animals side-by-side is fundamental to [Father] Curt’s vision of life and ministry,” he continued, “especially here at St. Peter’s – a mission that he loved so much. For [him] it was essential that brother and brother, and brother and sister, carry the life-giving cross together, sharing the mission of Christ for the life of the world.”
Father DeAngelo, who last visited with Father Kreml on a trip to Florida in the winter, spoke fondly of their simple reminiscing and their shared experience with cancer, and how it “brought into sharp focus the beauty of our life as friars and as ministers of the Gospel. On some days it was difficult to put one foot in front of the other, but somehow God always pulls us through to make it to another day.”
Father Kreml knew and believed, he said, “that our Lord, even in his suffering, walked side by side with him, along with the burdens he carried … he exchanged the cross of suffering for the yoke of eternal life. For Christ’s yoke is indeed easy, and his burden is light itself.”
Conventual Franciscan priests carry the casket of Father Curtis Kreml following the funeral Mass in St. Peter Church, Point Pleasant Beach. John Batkowski photo