CALLED BY NAME
By Father Nick Adam
All of our seminarians were in parishes and/or at the Cathedral during parts of Holy Week and the Easter Triduum. It was a lot of fun to get their perspective on things as they worked through the rigor of preparing and executing all the beautiful liturgies that the church offers during this sacred time of year. It has become tradition that on Spy Wednesday (the Wednesday of Holy Week), several seminarians and I celebrate Mass for the student body at St. Joseph in Madison. This year we were blessed to have all four of our St. Joe alumni seminarians along with Francisco Maldonado and Father Tristan Stovall was available to concelebrate! It was inspiring to the students, the faculty and staff, and myself to see those guys come back home and witness all those in attendance. Great thanks to Dr. Dena Kinsey, Charlene Papali and all those involved at St. Joe for inviting us again this year.
We are suddenly nearing the end of the seminary school year and a few of our men are nearing some important milestones. Joe Pearson will be graduating with his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from St. Joseph Seminary College on Friday, May 9. Joe is also about to complete the ‘discipleship stage’ of his formation. This stage is focused on becoming a more devoted disciple of Jesus before focusing specifically on discerning being a priest of Jesus Christ in the ‘configurative stage’ of formation.
We will move toward that stage of formation with Joe with his admission to candidacy on May 13 at the Cathedral of St. Peter. Joe will affirm that he continues to feel called to serious discernment of the priesthood and he will publicly begin wearing the roman collar. This will help him, and other candidates at this stage, to begin ‘trying on’ priesthood in a more concrete way. The fact is, when someone is wearing a collar, this says something about them. People being to approach you and ask you questions. They may have a positive, or a negative, view of the clergy, and one has to be prepared to be a messenger of Christ to them no matter what their perspective.
Will Foggo, meanwhile, is finishing his final full year of seminary formation. He will spend one final semester in the fall at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans and then be ordained a deacon in December, and then he’ll have a six-month assignment in a parish prior to his ordination to the priesthood in the spring or summer of 2026. It has been a pleasure to work with Will thus far and I know he’ll be a great asset to the brotherhood of priests in our diocese.
We keep moving forward with preparations for the upcoming school year. We have one new seminarian on board already, with several more applications still in progress. Please keep all those who are considering entering formation in your prayers, and pray for our vocations committee, myself, Bishop Kopacz, and all those who are involved in discerning with these applicants whether now is the time to enter into priestly formation. Happy Easter to all! Alleluia!
(For more information on vocations, visit jacksonvocations.com or contact Father Nick at nick.adam@jacksondiocese.org.)
Join Vocations Supporters on Flocknote for updates from the Vocations Office at: https://jacksondiocese.flocknote.com/VocationsSupport