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Jan. 11,
2007 |
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| Slinger parish boasts three seminarians
Pastor says supportive church community
helps foster vocations |
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By Deb Movrich
Special to your Catholic Herald |
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| Seminarians Ryan Pruess, left, Brad Held and Bryan VanMeter stand outside their home parish of St. Peter in Slinger. Pruess and VanMeter are studying for the diocesan priesthood while Held is studying for the Jesuit religious order. (Catholic Herald photo by Juan Carlos Medina) |
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SLINGER — If Catholics in Wisconsin are worried that the call to priesthood is on the decline, they need only look to St. Peter Parish for hope. Brad Held, 22, Ryan Pruess, 23, and Bryan VanMeter, 23, all graduates of Slinger High School and members of St. Peter Parish, are on track to be ordained as priests within the next six to 10 years.
Late in December, while on break from studying, Held, Pruess and VanMeter gathered at their “home” – the basement of St. Clair Hall on St. Peter Parish grounds — to reflect upon their call to priesthood.
For Pruess, the process of discernment started at a young age. He recalled receiving much encouragement from parishioners to answer the call to the religious vocation. A constant in the religious education department while growing up, Pruess said he began seriously thinking about a religious vocation while in high school.
He interned at a sales and marketing company in Germantown and realized he was in the wrong arena. His next career choice was in law enforcement, but looking back, Pruess said he realizes he was looking to get into a helping career – and law enforcement was not the right fit for him either.
It was when Ann Hayden, a parish volunteer, invited Pruess to participate in a “Test Your Call” interview that he determined the priesthood would be a good fit for him.
A junior at Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, Pruess’s major areas of study are religious studies and philosophy. He’s also in the college seminarian program at Saint Francis Seminary.
VanMeter started college at the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh as an English major with the intention of becoming a teacher. But he switched majors when he realized there was more involved than just teaching. There was also, he said, “red tape” and he didn’t know if he could handle it.
VanMeter said that the idea of priesthood came into his mind while he was taking archaeology classes. But then there was the matter of giving up the possibility of owning a home, having a family, and having money, he said. He kept with archaeology and eventually got into biblical archaeology.
This was when VanMeter said he switched to religious studies as he realized it was the biblical part not the archaeological part that he liked.
“I was just voracious about those (religious) studies,” VanMeter said, admitting that he liked the challenge of Scripture studies.
This was not VanMeter’s first jaunt into religious education, however. With a Catholic mother and Southern Baptist father, VanMeter, at age 10, immersed himself in Catholicism when his father converted.
“We really talked as a family through our faith; what does it mean to be Catholic; what does it mean to have faith in God … how everything worked. As (his father) was changing faiths … it gave me a chance to explore my faith as he was exploring it, basically on the same level as I was at that time,” VanMeter said.
For Held, college (at Marquette University) was when he began to consider priesthood. It was as early as his sophomore or junior year that he remembers getting the calling and praying, “Why are you asking me to do this, God?”
Held continued at Marquette and graduated with a degree in political science. When he attended a “Come and See” weekend at Loyola University in Chicago, Held began to take the possibility of religious life in the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) seriously.
“It’s very hard to hear the voice of God a lot,” Held said, adding, “It takes prayer … but that’s not something that I think you’re taught to value in a lot of ways. It takes those people who are willing to be that witness … and it’s not about pushing a vocation upon people. It’s really that gentle hand of guiding people.”
Held is in his first year at the Jesuit novitiate in St. Paul, Minn.
According to Fr. Rick Stoffel, pastor at St. Peter Parish, it’s not coincidence that three men from St. Peter are studying for the priesthood.
“The environment of St. Peter’s … is special, as all do make vocations their concern,” Fr. Stoffel said, specifically listing former pastors who served at St. Peter during the lifetime of the three young men.
“I’m humbled to say we’ve had some remarkably holy pastors who, in simple performance of duty, have been examples of priestly happiness and service,” Fr. Stoffel said.
Held, Pruess and VanMeter agree.
“It’s a unique environment,” Pruess, said, of St. Peter Parish.
Held said he can recall parishioners approaching him after Mass and asking him if he’d ever considered being a priest.
“What makes our environment unique is that there is no one in the parish who considers it somebody else’s job to promote vocations; we all must and do,” Fr. Stoffel said.
According to Pruess, it’s not just religious vocations that St. Peter parishioners emphasize. They emphasize finding God’s call to all vocations.
VanMeter said he and the other seminarians have come into their vocation at a good time – during the time of Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan’s service in the archdiocese.
“Realistically, whether he’s going to be there for my ordination or not, I’m being ordained to him and all his successors,” VanMeter said.
All three men realize their vocations are lifetime commitments.
“I think there’s some nervousness to this lifelong commitment thing,” Held said.
Regardless of the discernment process that all three men say will no doubt continue throughout their studies, they know they have the support of their families and of their parish.
“The whole parish is interested in their progress, anticipating with joy the day when these sons of theirs will be known as spiritual fathers for us all. They will succeed, in my opinion, because they enter this journey with no agendas, no issues, only love for God and zeal for his church,” said Fr. Stoffel. |
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