| Written by Catholic Register Staff,
|
Views : 2254  |
 Editor’s note: On the following articles, The Catholic Register gives a glimpse into the priestly lives of three of God’s servants in the archdiocese of Toronto to commemorate announcement of the Year for Priests.
 Fr. Patrick O'Dea
Written by Sheila Dabu, The Catholic Register
TORONTO - Matthew Otto was a 17-year-old campus minister at the University of Toronto when he first met Fr. Patrick O’Dea. Today, Otto, 23 is the Newman Centre’s youngest choir director and a shining example of the impact O’Dea has had on his vibrant faith community.
For O’Dea, placing youth into leadership positions reflects his philosophy of engaging parishioners and of empowering the community, a philosophy that has guided him through nine years as pastor at the Newman Centre and St. Thomas Aquinas parish.
Over that time O’Dea has won the loving admiration of his parishioners by creating an inclusive, faith-based community for all ages. One of his proudest achievements at the small church in the heart of the U of T campus has been nurturing the growth of Sunday morning Mass and evening youth Mass to about 300 parishioners each.
So it has been a bittersweet time at the Newman Centre in recent weeks as O’Dea’s congregation of students, families and long-time parishioners say goodbye to the man they’ve known as their “spiritual father.” He has been reassigned to St. Marguerite D’Youville parish in Brampton, effective July 1. His replacement is Fr. Michael Machacek, currently pastor at St. Patrick’s parish in Markham.
O’Dea’s years as Newman pastor have been about working 12-hour days, being there for students, serving diverse community needs and, generally, creating a welcoming atmosphere that is a constant buzz of activity.
He beams at the memories of presiding over the weddings of students who met at Newman, and then baptizing their children. Being there for his young parishioners has always been important for O’Dea. For those students on campus who couldn’t make it home for Thanksgiving or Christmas, O’Dea let them know there was always a home-cooked meal for them and a seat in the chapel.
As O’Dea sees it, that is what Cardinal John Henry Newman, the centre’s namesake, would have wanted: To have a “spiritual home” on campus.
The Newman Centre is the only parish in the Toronto archdiocese that is a combined parish and university chaplaincy. It was built for businessman Wilmot D. Matthews in 1890 and purchased by the Newman Club in 1922. Four years later, St. Thomas Aquinas Church was built next door and it was administered by the Paulist and Basilian Fathers until 1995.
The pastor at the Newman Centre and St. Thomas Aquinas Church must balance the dual responsibility of managing a parish and providing chaplaincy services to the large Catholic population at the University of Toronto. It is a role O’Dea has relished. O’Dea likens the priesthood to fatherhood, without an immediate family, adding that being a “spiritual father” has parallels to family life.
“It’s like watching a child grow and enjoying all of the moments of that growth,” he said.
One such child was Fr. Ed Curtis. At age 17 Curtis approached O’Dea, who was then vocations director at Serra House, about joining the priesthood. O’Dea placed Curtis on a vocations mailing list and Curtis formally discerned a few years later at university. Today he is associate pastor at Mississauga’s St. Joseph’s parish.
“He does what he does because he’s a man of love,” Curtis said of O’Dea. “In love with the Lord and in love with being a priest.”
In a bulletin reflection, parish council member Kevin Doran wrote about O’Dea: “He restores the image of priests in these times of great clerical challenge.”
O’Dea was born in County Wexford, Ireland, raised in Rochester, N.Y., and moved to Toronto in 1981. He had been in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War but the war ended before he was deployed overseas. He entered the Order of the Most Holy Trinity in Baltimore within a week of finishing his military service and after ordination was assigned to Toronto, where he found his calling to become a diocesan priest.
It’s a decision that families like the Kingvissers say they’re glad he made. Megan, 12, calls O’Dea an “awesome” priest who gets to know everybody, no matter your age. Megan and Miriam, 10, are hospitality ministers at Newman and help out with the “doughnut ministry,” co-ordinated by their mother, Emily, after Mass.
“His talent,” Emily said, “is making everyone feel like they have a role to play.”
 Fr. Vito Marziliano
Written by Michael Swan, The Catholic Register
TORONTO - For 27 years Fr. Vito Marziliano has been on a journey and he has had many companions on the journey.
“The most beautiful reward (of priesthood) is to share people’s journey of faith,” he told The Catholic Register. “For people to have their hearts open to your presence, your input, your sharing of your own journey with Christ — that journeying together is for me the most powerful of all rewards.”
For all 27 years Marziliano has straddled two worlds. He has ministered to ethnic Italian parishes and to English territorial parishes. He has been prominent on Italian-language television and radio broadcasts and led a diverse group of young people to embrace World Youth Day in 2002.
Marziliano doesn’t think what he does in Italian is any different from what he does in English. For him, it all stems from the altar of sacrifice.
“When you leave the altar, you’re going to celebrate what you have just lived — that encounter with Christ in the word and the sacrament,” he said. “Whether it be in the confessional, whether it be visiting the hospital, whether it be meeting somebody in your office. Whatever it is, it really stems from there.”
For the 52-year-old pastor, just moved from All Saints parish in Etobicoke to St. Clare’s northwest of downtown Toronto, he has had one prayer that’s stuck with him since the week of his 1982 ordination. It is “the grace to make the ministry always a new excitement, a new reality, something I will never get used to.... My prayer is not to let it become routine.”
It’s a prayer God keeps answering, he said.
 Fr. Elton Fernandes, S.J.
Written by Michael Swan, The Catholic Register
TORONTO - Two months into his priesthood what strikes Fr. Elton Fernandes, S.J., about it is there’s nothing vague or theoretical about being a priest. The Masses he offers and the Confessions he hears are about the hardest circumstances in people’s lives — and each one is as individual as the people involved.
“It’s very rare that someone would give me a vague (Mass) intention,” he said.
Hearing Confessions during the first month of his priesthood has been a powerful experience for the Toronto-born, 33-year-old Fernandes.
“As a priest you have an opportunity to be God’s Word to people — and that happens in reconciliation, when you concretely are a messenger of Christ’s mercy,” he said.
Fernandes knows there are pitfalls, and plenty of ex-Catholics with stories of damaging things priests have said in confessionals.
“It’s a sacrament that can be very helpful and extremely consoling, but it can also be harmful to people. It could go either way. But I think it’s true that God gives you the grace of office,” he said.
Fernandes would never walk into a confessional without having prayed for the aid of the Holy Spirit, and he finds that he gets what he prays for. Words come out in response to people that he could not have planned.
Already 10 years in the Society of Jesus, Fernandes is finding his first weeks and months of priestly ministry are the natural fruit of his years of study and ministry in Jesuit formation.
“That fruit doesn’t come out of nowhere. I’ve felt God’s presence with me very much through these 10 years,” he said.
On weekends Fernandes is helping out at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Chinese Catholic parish in downtown Toronto. During the week he’s finishing up his masters’ thesis which compares the concepts of compassion in Buddhism and Catholicism. In September he will begin a nine-month internship in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, preparing him for work as a spiritual director.
Recommend this article...
|
(0 vote)
