For decades he guided thousands through Cursillo weekends in Methuen and carried the same retreat behind prison walls, offering hope to the St. Basil community, and beyond

METHUEN, MA, October 21, 2026 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Archimandrite Joseph Polycarp Martin Hyatt, b.s.o., priest of 42 years, known across the Merrimack Valley and southern New Hampshire simply as "Father Martin," died on Saturday, October 17, 2026, surrounded by his siblings, and nieces and nephews.

Father Martin's name is inseparable from Cursillo at Saint Basil's. For many years he served as General Spiritual Director of the Cursillo movement at the Center, and in recent years the Basilian Salvatorian Order assigned him full time as Spiritual Director of Cursillo and Prison Ministry, alongside his role as Director of the Center. Cursillo — Spanish for "short course" in Christianity — is a three-day weekend, in which lay teams and spiritual directors invite participants to encounter the love of Jesus Christ personally and carry it into daily life. Thousands and thousands of people have "lived their Cursillo" and come to know the love of Christ, with Father Martin at the helm of the mission.

Father Martin's love reached those many had forgotten. At a prison chaplain's request, Saint Basil's ran its first Cursillo in prison in December 1988 at MCI-Framingham, a women's prison, and its first men's Prison Cursillo in October 1989 at the Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater. By 2013 the ministry had run 45 men's weekends and Father Martin served as spiritual director on more than 50 of these prison retreats.

The Center records that incarcerated men and women who once felt like society's throwaways leave their weekends feeling loved and forgiven — some speaking of "feeling human for the first time."

Those who knew Father Martin describe a priest who preached the Gospel by how he lived it. Writing for the Saint Basil's community on the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, he urged that the poor be served with humility and with respect for their dignity, and summed it up simply: "All the Works of Mercy flow from a humble heart."

He will be profoundly missed.

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