Age: 24
Home Parish: St. Francis of Assis, Northville, NY
Seminary/Stage of Study: Mundelein Seminary/2nd Theology Degrees: B.A. in Religious Studies, Le Moyne College
Work Experience: Full-time Volunteer at Sarnelli House with Redemptorist Volunteer Ministries, Office assistant at Le Moyne College Office of the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs;
Interests: singing/music, nature, calligraphy
Vocation Story:
After four years of formation as a seminarian for our diocese, I can now write from the perspective of an ordained minister. On May 29th, 2010, J. Michael Taylor and I were ordained along with two other men of our diocese to the diaconate at our newly restored cathedral downtown. The four of us were the first of hundreds, and possibly thousands, of men who will pledge their lives to the imitation of Christ in service to his Church on that new extension of our cathedral’s sanctuary.
It is still difficult at times for me to accept that day was real and not just a dream! I had been waiting for it for so long and it filled me with a joy I had never experienced before. I have no hesitation in saying that it was the happiest day of my life. I am still mystified at how effortlessly the promises we need to make at ordination came to me. They just felt right. If someone had asked me to make them four years ago… well… let’s just say it would have required more than effort! But, this is the grace which comes to us when we truly discern God’s will for our lives, that is, when we truly come to understand the deepest truths about ourselves and what God is calling us to leave behind and what he offers us instead to embrace anew. If I could synthesize the insights I have gained over these past years of formation, it would be to say that I have come to recognize that there is more to live for than I ever imagined. Things which used to seem so critical to me, so many hopes and dreams that I had nurtured for years, now pale in comparison with the hopes and dreams I have for my life as a deacon.
This past summer, I worked as a chaplain intern at Albany Medical Center doing the C.P.E. (Clinical Pastoral Education) program there. It certainly provided the most intimate experience I have had thus far with the breadth and depth of human suffering. Each week of the program brought me into contact with new people in new crises facing new dilemmas. “How can God let this happen??? How can he take my loved one away from me??? Why isn’t God listening to our prayers??? Is there really something on the ‘other side’ of this life???” These were the questions I found people asking on every floor of the hospital. Then, at the same time, there were also people at each turn encountering God for the first time in a long time, convinced that their being alive was a miracle, convinced that it was prayer alone that had helped them to survive. Through all of these meetings and interactions, I was learning how to be a steward of God’s household. I reflected for many weeks on the parable of the workers in the vineyard who all receive a full day’s wage no matter how long they worked. In the story, the master of the vineyard instructs his steward to pay out the wages. He himself has determined the remuneration, it is his money, and yet he makes another responsible for actually doling out the fruits of his generosity. That was the position in which I stood so many times this past summer. It was wonderful.
For this final year of seminary, I look forward to growing deeper in my understanding of my new role; I am sure that there are many more insights to come which will leave me in awe of what God has done in my life. Of course, I look forward to my ordination to the priesthood as well and already I am taken aback by all of the transformation I am sure will occur then as that identity unfolds for me.
