Three ordinations for diocese on June 28: To the priesthood
SALT LAKE CITY — Deacon Anthony Shumway will be ordained a priest for the Diocese of Salt Lake City by Bishop Oscar A. Solis on June 28 at the Cathedral of the Madeleine. It will be a homecoming for the Utah native, who took something of a detour on the way to his vocation.
“I grew up in Utah and I love this state because of the people and everything that is Utah,” he said. “And I’m so excited to be back home, to be able to minister to the people and to be able to get to know so many people that I have not gotten to know across the state. I look forward to being able to be a priest for this diocese and to be able to serve the people of God here.”
Deacon Shumway, a St. Martin de Porres parishioner, fell away from the Church as a teenager and decided instead to focus his energies on a career in aeronautics. After graduating from Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology in Oklahoma, he obtained a job with SpaceX in Los Angeles. Although he learned a lot, before long he realized the experience was not fulfilling for him. He returned to Utah, but does not regret his time spent at the aerospace firm.
‘Looking back, there were different hurdles that I had to overcome, that I needed to grow up in and learn about myself,” he said. “I could have learned those in the seminary, but I don’t think any of that time was a hindrance.”
As a lead inspector at SpaceX, Deacon Shumway was often under a lot of pressure. That experience has served him well in his Church service, he said. “Being able to overcome having that kind of pressure has given me the willingness and the understanding of how to persevere in the stress of day-to-day life as a priest.”
Returning to Utah, Deacon Shumway took a job in construction. Not long after, while attending Mass with his parents, he felt a distinct call to the priesthood. Nervous about the academic rigor of seminary life because he had not been a strong student in high school, Deacon Shumway nevertheless enrolled in Mt. Angel Seminary in St. Benedict, Ore., in August 2015 at the age of 26.
“When I started at seminary, I was very concerned whether I was going to be academically able to do seminary,” he said. “Now that I’ve completed all of schooling, and I look back I go, ‘Wow, I actually got really good grades.’ It gave me a boost of confidence for myself, that I can, with the grace of God, achieve things that I didn’t think were possible.”
With the help of instructors at the seminary he completed a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a master’s degree in divinity. He is working on another master’s in systematic theology and expects to complete it next year.
Of all the classes he took early in his formation, one in particular, “The Priestly Heart of Jesus,” became the basis for his formation in the years since, he said.
“The point of the class was to align our hearts with the heart of Christ, and so in every aspect, and everything that we do, we are always trying to do as Christ would do,” he said. “So for the last five years, that’s what every class asks: ‘How does this integrate into that priesthood calling of being able to put aside our desire and our wants and our needs, and be able to go and take care of Christ’s people in the way that Christ would, and as they need?’”
The vocation of priesthood is not a job, it is more like being a parent of a large family, Deacon Shumway said.
“‘Priest’ is another image of a dad or a mom in that, at 2 a.m. if your child is sick and throwing up everywhere, you don’t go, ‘I’ll wait until tomorrow morning, and they can take care of themselves,’” he said “No. You get up, you clean up the throw up, and you take care of them, and you comfort them all throughout the night. You make that sacrifice. In the priesthood it is the same idea. We have a much bigger family that we’re taking care of; we have an entire congregation. And so if that congregation is sick, if somebody is sick, we’re there to take care of them, just like a dad or a mom would.”
Deacon Shumway is looking forward to several aspects of the priesthood. “One of the biggest things is to be able to just dedicate my life to people, being able to be radically available,” he said. “I get to be there for people in the happiest moments of their lives, like baptizing their children or having a wedding. I also get to be there with them in some of the hardest times — when they’re going through marital issues, or they were just diagnosed with an incurable disease — and walking with them, and eventually doing their funeral and praying for them. I look forward to spending time with them in all aspects of life.”
Deacon Shumway encourages other young Catholic men who may be discerning a call to the priesthood but are nervous about the seminary experience to take the first step.
“I would tell them to give it a year,” he said. “When you go to seminary, you’re free to leave at any time. At the seminary, the focus is on helping you discern if you are called to be a priest. Know that you have the support system; that seminary is designed to not let you fail. It’s designed to help you succeed in all aspects of life, prayer, academic and to grow as a person. Going and spending a year there will not be useless, and it will make you grow as a better man, as a better Catholic.”
WHAT: Ordinations to the Priesthood and Permanent Diaconate
WHEN: June 28 at 6 p.m.
WHERE: Cathedral of the Madeleine, 309 East South Temple, Salt Lake City
All are welcome.
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