“At the end of the day, there is nothing you can do to give a vocation to anybody,” said Fr. John Del Priore, the parochial vicar at St. Augustine University Parish near the UW-Platteville campus. “It is the Holy Spirit who is working.”
He and Fr. Eric Nielsen, pastor and executive director at the St. Paul’s University Catholic near the UW-Madison campus, recently agreed to be interviewed about the vocations growing from their college campus ministries.
Currently, there are five diocesan seminarians who came from the two Newman centers.
Casey Cooney and Anthony Kersting are from St. Paul, and David Drefcinski, Matthew Hanstad, and David Jaramillo are from St. Augustine.
Father Nielsen expressed that he felt vocations have been stable since he first was assigned to St. Paul’s in 2006.
“We usually get about three to five people every year entering some sort of celibate vocation,” said Father Nielsen.
“Usually a vocation, if it’s a real vocation, develops over time,” he said. “It grows within a person kind of imperceptibly.”
Perhaps that is why some people’s journeys to seminary and the priesthood aren’t as straightforward as one might expect.
God’s timing
Ryan Webster was a freshman at UW-Platteville when he met Father Del Priore at St. Augustine.
He is now a seminarian studying in Spain to become a priest for the Society of Jesus Christ the Priest, the Religious Order Father Del Priore belongs to.
“What was remarkable about it to me is that doesn’t happen,” said Father Del Priore. “We don’t really accept guys 18 and over, but this guy was, and facilitating that was great.”
Del Priore described the young man as “on fire” for the faith, having a great prayer life and attraction for the Extraordinary Form of the Mass.
“It was Lent,” said Father Del Priore. “And he was kind of himself discerning the priesthood. We were talking and chatting, and then he said he wanted to change his minor to Spanish.”
Father Del Priore then mentioned to him that his Order was based in Spain and asked the young man if he’d be interested in joining the Order.
“He said, ‘Absolutely, I’d be interested,’” Father Del Priore explained, and so the priest contacted his superior who had him contact his superior. Both superiors reminded him of the age requirements for their seminary but ultimately agreed to work with the young man. “All these roadblocks were in place, but if it is God’s will, then the roadblocks are removed. This is something we never do, but he was accepted, and he’s doing great. He is currently in Spain right now.”
When asked about how one might discern out of a vocation, Father Del Priore expressed that the seminary itself is a tool for discernment. “You cannot really discern seriously without going to the seminary. That is a place for discernment and that is what it is for.”
He did express, though, that there are people “who in two seconds you can tell does not have a vocation . . . when you have a vocation to the ministerial priesthood — you are a person who is called to be just automatically the leader of an organization and to interact with people and to guide people. It is a huge responsibility.”
Leading others to the faith
Another example of vocation coming out of Platteville is Matthew Hanstad who was on the varsity soccer team at UW-Platteville.
“He was in a Bible study as a freshman, and then really took off in his spiritual life,” said Father Del Priore. “He ended up leading a Bible study for the soccer guys, very few of which were Catholic.
“He would take these guys down to hear Matins in the monastery down in Dubuque at like seven in the morning on a Saturday, [it was] a bunch of soccer guys down to pray and listen to Matins. He had a great presence on the team, and now he is in seminary.”
But joining seminary should not be viewed as a straightforward path to the priesthood.
“There is this whole process to go through in seminary for discerning both starting and every year,” said Father Del Priore.
“So, if men think they have a vocation, you just go to seminary. You just talk to Father Greg [Ihm], and you go through the process, and the process is designed to help you discern.
“That is why I think the whole openness has to be just the experiencing. When people don’t go to seminary or talk to Father Greg, it’s like somebody who says ‘I want to get married without dating anybody.’
“People think the Church is just going to shoot people to the priesthood. It absolutely doesn’t.
“There are a million roadblocks — first of all, the intellectual formation and the human formation that men have to go through. It is a very elaborate process that really helps men discern through the process.”
Rooted in spiritual formation
Perhaps that is why both priests of the St. Paul University Catholic Center and St. Augustine University Parish focus so much on spiritual formation to help foster vocations.
“I would say the most important thing we do is we try our best to connect [students] to Jesus Christ through the Sacraments,” said Father Nielsen.
“The understanding is that if they are close to Jesus, they will find their vocation.”
When Father Del Priore was asked why UW-Platteville seemed to be seeing some growth in seminarians coming from there, he pointed to the sacraments.
“We have an emphasis on the sacrament of the Eucharist,” he said. “We have Adoration from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., and we have Confessions every day with two Masses a day at 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. — Confessions before every Mass. It’s not rocket science. I do promote vocations in the homilies and stuff, but the main thing is the sacraments, right?”
He also mentioned that they offer a vocations Bible study, but stated that it has a limited effect.
“mainly it is just getting guys before the Eucharist and before the confessional,” he said.
Father Nielsen added that if a young person feels they have a vocation, they should “not worry about it, not date, and deepen their prayer life and friendship with others. If they have fears about Religious Life or the priesthood, they should get those resolved. Fear can put a real obstacle in somebody’s life to pursue a vocation.”
“Frequent Confession and frequent sacraments will help them discern any vocation, whether it is to Religious Life or marriage,” said Father Del Priore. “I think one of the big problems is not really discerning marriage as a vocation, as a calling from God and a co-working with the Holy Spirit.”