Priests, sisters, deacons share vocation stories
WEST HAVEN — Every person has a story about their vocation, “and I think it’s beautiful to hear because it shows how God enters into all the weird nooks and crannies of our lives and that he can call anyone; he calls who he wills.”
With those words, Father Joseph Delka, vocations director for the Diocese of Salt Lake City, set the tone for the Nov. 22 Vocations Night at St. Mary Catholic Church, which was attended by religious education students in the area, as well as other people who may be discerning a vocation to the priesthood or religious life.
During the vocations night, three sisters from two religious orders, three priests, one deacon and a candidate for the diaconate shared their stories. A written presentation from the Carmelite nuns in Salt Lake City also was read.
Fr. Delka’s story exemplifies the mysterious ways of God. Fr. Delka was raised an evangelical Christian; it wasn’t until he was 18 that he knew what a Catholic priest was, he said. After entering Utah State University he began to explore his religious beliefs and “discovered” the Catholic Church, he said. Feeling an attraction to Catholicism, he did some research on his own, then went to talk to the pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Logan. He then went through the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults and was received into the Church. A month later, the pastor told him he thought Fr. Delka had a call to the priesthood, Fr. Delka said. He thanked the priest and left, dismissing the idea, but didn’t sleep that night, he said.
Over the next few years Fr. Delka argued with the Lord about the call, but eventually went on a retreat where he discerned his path. He entered the seminary and was ordained a priest in 2015.
“Whatever God is calling you to do, whatever God is calling you to be, that is a good thing, because he knows you better than you know yourself,” Fr. Delka told those at the Vocations Night, and he encouraged them to be open to God’s call.
In contrast to Fr. Delka, for Holy Cross Sister Veronica Fajardo, the Catholic Church was very familiar and the faith was important to her family. Born in Nicaragua, she grew up in Los Angeles. At age of 8 she told her mother she was going to be either a teacher or a religious sister, she said. Several members of her family are in religious orders and she has a cousin who is a priest, “so the religious life is not something that was unknown to me,” she said.
In college, she thought she might get married, but she also felt the urge to explore religious orders. Her priest told her, “if you have a calling, God is going to give you hints along the way … and you’re going to feel like ‘this is right for me’ or ‘this is not right for me,’” she said.
Like Fr. Delka, she encouraged those present to “listen to what is in your heart. … For the majority of you, God will probably call you to be moms and dads, and that’s OK, because we need moms and dads and we need children so that our Church continues to grow. But for some of you … you might be called to the priesthood or the religious life.”
Deacon Howard Schuyler, who was ordained in 2017, gave a brief description of the deaconate, explaining that deacons are ordained ministers who may offer several of the sacraments but cannot celebrate the Eucharist or forgive sins like a priest. Then he said that a man becomes a deacon “out of love and a desire to serve God and to be of service of others. These are the reasons why a person says ‘yes’ to God. It is a response to a call; it is a reply to a request to say ‘yes’ to God. It is an answer which arises from the heart of the individual when they’re asked to serve.”
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