‘I gave God an ultimatum’: how an agnostic-turned-priest changed his mind

By his own description, Father Marcus Schonnop was raised in a “wonderful” agnostic household in Surrey.

So he never seriously considered religion until he met his future godfather, Jason Smith, while working a job in the forestry industry. Smith invited him to Mass and Schonnop was touched.

“I wanted to imitate his life and witness. He was a solid guy who was a brother to me,” he said. “Forestry was the place that God put Catholicism in my path.”

Despite some reticence, this encounter with Catholicism left him feeling that there was something more than the worldly life he had been living. Writing for Mosaic, he reminisces:

“I attended a conference for Catholic university students. To be honest, I didn’t want to go. But someone paid for me, saying the conference would change my life. I accepted the money and went skeptically. One evening during the conference, there was a night of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. It was during that night that I gave the Lord the ultimatum: ‘God, if you are real you need to show me, or I am out. You had your chance!’”

He said the Lord responded instantly. “I felt waves of joy, love, peace, and warmth throughout my entire body. I was baptized in the Holy Spirit before ever being baptized. I instantly knew that God was real, that Jesus died for my sins, and he had a definite plan for my life. It was as though the lights came on. Jesus brought my heart to life.”

There is a charismatic zeal to the way Father Schonnop expresses himself and to hear about his conversion conjures up images of St. Augustine pouring tears onto his Bible. However, his story seems devoid of the “just not yet” that so characterized Augustine’s conversion.

“Don’t be afraid,” Father Schonnop told The B.C. Catholic.

“The Lord knows the deepest desires of everyone’s hearts and he wants to grant us those desires ... I lived a life in the world and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone else .... The more I was able to surrender, the more God was able to fulfil those desires.”

Almost immediately after receiving the sacraments of initiation in 2010, he went on mission with the National Evangelization Team. Despite only being Catholic for a few months he was made a group leader. The brotherhood and community of the missionaries left an impression on him and confirmed his desire to serve God totally.

He believes the trip “helped orient him toward the priesthood” and leadership in the Church. 

Shortly after NET, while at a 2011 Rise Up conference, he discovered priesthood might be his true calling. During the workshop a panel discussion was held in which a collection of priests and religious discussed their paths to their vocations. Without any prior planning they all attributed their vocational discernment to the influence of Father Bob Bedard.

Father Bedard is best known for founding the Companions of the Cross, a religious community whose priests centre their mission around evangelization and outreach.

To Father Schonnop, the Companions of the Cross offered the logical conclusion to his search. Their evangelical mission meshed well with his experiences on NET and,  because he came to Christ through the evangelization of a friend, it felt like a good fit.

“I became Catholic because someone shared the faith with me. I had a responsibility to pass that on to others,” Father Schonnop said.

He was ordained a priest of the Companions of the Cross at Notre-Dame Cathedral-Basilica in Ottawa on the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 2020.

One year after his ordination, Father Schonnop returned to St. Bernadette’s Parish in Surrey to celebrate Mass in thanksgiving for his vocation and priesthood. In his homily he reflected on the “totality” of Christ’s call to us and the need for our response to be equally total.

“The beautiful revelation is that we can draw close to [God],” Father Schonnop told the congregation.

The apostles “recognized that all the treasures in this world paled in comparison to the treasure they just found … they would sell all that they had to obtain this treasure.”

“We need to step out of the centre. Step off that throne often I reserve for myself and maybe you do too. That throne is not for us, it’s for our king and he is coming to meet us shortly” in the Eucharist.

Related: