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May 17, 2007
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Boot camp was step toward priesthood |
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Lessons from Marines helpful to Sean Granger |
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| Sean Granger will be ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan on May 18. (Catholic Herald photo by Sam Lucero) |
ST. FRANCIS —The walls of his seminary dorm room are a constant reminder to Sean Granger of the nine-year journey he’s taken that will culminate in ordination to the priesthood on Friday.
Hanging on those walls are the nine posters produced by the archdiocesan vocations office featuring seminarians. Granger, 28, is the only seminarian who appears in all nine. For him, the posters track the different years in his life, the men with whom he studied — some who are now priests, others who have left the seminary and still others who will be ordained.
There are the memories, too. For example, the year when then-vocation director Fr. Bob Stiefvater asked all the seminarians to bring a prop to the photo shoot. Granger was one of only a few to remember Fr. Stiefvater’s request, so the accordion he’s playing on the left side of the poster not only stands out, but seems a bit out of place.
The first poster positions the men as if they were a football squad, a group that now looks to Granger like a group of high school kids.
“I look at it and realize how much has changed since then,” he commented.
Then there’s the poster where the seminarians were seated on rocks near the lakefront. That one was painful, recalled Granger. It too, however, is representative of Granger’s journey to priesthood which at times was rocky and challenging.
“(Seminary) was very challenging because you get to see different sides of priests and lay students and it makes it difficult to understand where people are and how it fits together, and they challenge your faith,” he said. “But through having my faith challenged, it seemed to strengthen it.”
Granger grew up in West Allis, one of Barbara and Gerald Granger’s two children. He has a younger sister, Gina. He attended Mary Queen of Heaven School until fourth grade when he transferred to the West Allis public school system.
As a fourth grader, while serving Mass for Fr. Jeffery Prasser, Granger said he had his first positive feeling about priesthood. He was impressed with Fr. Prasser’s approach to the Mass and his seemingly general happiness about priesthood.
“Fr. Jeff just showed me lots of tricks as to how to serve. He was a very down-to-earth-type of guy and I really respected that. He was the first priest who appeared very human to me and I respected that a lot,” he recalled. “That was the first time I recognized priesthood as a good thing, because of my relationship with Fr. Jeff.”
In high school the idea resurfaced. Granger also realized that many of his peers sought him out for informal counseling, often talking to him about faith issues, relationships, family problems, and disputes with classmates.
“People saw me as a natural priestly figure, even in high school,” he noted.
Yet, Granger did not enter the seminary immediately. Instead, the proficient trombone and accordion player was accepted into the Marine Corps Band following his graduation from West Allis Nathan Hale High School in 1997.
Planning to serve four years as a musician with the Marines, Granger, the son of a Vietnam veteran, went to basic training. Much to his disappointment at the time, he was discharged at age 19 after boot camp due to a previously undiagnosed vision problem.
Now he looks upon the discharge as part of God’s plan.
“It was a disappointment and I wasn’t sure what do with myself at the time,” he admitted. “As I look back, and see the process with the Marine Corps, I see how God was influential in that. The Marine Corps boot camp challenges you and pushes you in new directions,” he said. “When you’re being trained in situations of combat and war, you really understand the frailty of life and what matters most. You recognized how important your loved ones are.
“I think God was helping me get a little more discipline than I had in high school and I think that discipline was enough to carry me through the nine years of seminary. As I look back, I see how God wanted me to be in the Marine Corps first for that training because if I would have gone into the seminary right away, I’m not sure if I would have been as steadfast in finishing.”
Granger entered the seminary’s college program a few months later, completing his degree in philosophy and theater in three and a half years at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee.
From there he moved to Saint Francis Seminary for the next five and a half years of preparation. During those years, the seminary and the church underwent drastic changes. For example, Granger, who only knew one pope, Pope John Paul II and one archbishop, Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland, saw a new pope and archbishop enter the scene in the form of Pope Benedict XVI and Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan.
The church was shaken by the sexual abuse scandal five years ago, and Granger admitted it made him question his future.
“I was in the seminary before the scandal — especially the scandal in Boston — when I was moving from the college program to the graduate program here was when all of that took place - that’s why there are only two of us, Carmelo (Giuffre) and I. Nobody new entered the program that year, nor the year after,” he explained.
“It was a time of challenge, going from the college level to the graduate level and having no new people come, yet feeling, ‘Is this the right thing to do?’ That’s part of the doubt. ‘Is this what I want to be a part of? Do I want to take on this burden?’ — and then saying, actually, ‘yeah, because the Catholic Church is a source of truth,’” he said.
As he looks ahead to his own priesthood, Granger said he’s been influenced by many priests. He said he and others his age bring a new approach to the priesthood.
“I think there’s a big difference between the older clergy and the younger clergy,” he said, explaining his generation grew up with television, video games, text messaging and computers.
“Young clergy are a part of that because we grew up in that same generation that influences the ways in which we understand our environment and understand things,” he said.
“I have to then take tradition, theology, teaching, understand it from of old but then somehow redirect it in a way not only understandable to myself, but to others of my same age bracket which makes priesthood of the newly ordained somewhat unique because we understand the world somewhat differently.”
While comfortable with high-tech communication, Granger is attached to one of Catholicism’s cherished traditions, the liturgy. In fact, it’s probably what he most looks forward to as a priest.
“Sunday Mass is a high point of how we understand all other components of what happens in the church. From there comes forth all our catechesis, all our other programs, everything else stems from that,” he said.
“I’ve studied not only our own liturgy but also the Byzantine liturgy and I’ve found both to be very fascinating. Music and theater sort of play an influence on liturgy; understanding how liturgy was in the past and how we understand it today is important. As a priest you lead people in prayer and the way we Catholics pray is as routine and in that way, liturgy is very important. By that focus of liturgy, you end up praying in a certain way that draws others into that.” |
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