Clergy to talk path to priesthood
The B.C. Catholic
Four men are proving that God calls His priests in unique ways.
At the Ordinandi Dinner, Feb. 4, Deacon Mark McGuckin, Deacon Lucio Choi, Father Davide Lanzani, and Father Larry Lynn will talk about how God called each of them.
Deacon McGuckin had a lukewarm faith in his teens. “I was going to church on Sunday mainly because my dad would call on Monday to see if I had gone,” he laughed.
He took up a career in the film industry and was just finishing a major three-year project when he had a sudden crisis.
“There was this void. It was really frustrating because I thought I was fulfilling my life the way I saw fit, but there was a huge thing that was missing.”
It was then, around 2009, when he looked into religion in earnest. He felt a growing call to serve, and after some serious discernment, left film and entered the seminary. He thought, “This call to serve is something more radical and I have to pursue this.”
Deacon McGuckin is hoping to be ordained a priest in May. So is Deacon Choi.
“I felt I was called when I was in Grade 4,” said Deacon Choi. Born in Korea, he looked up to the assistant pastor at his parish and was devastated when the priest was moved to a new parish.
“At his very last Mass in my parish, after Communion, I remember praying to God, ‘I want to be like him. I want to wear that Roman collar.'” He entered the minor seminary in Grade 12.
Father Lanzani, the son of Italian missionaries, also heard the call to the priesthood at a young age. He entered the seminary at age 18 and was the first Redemptoris Mater seminarian to be ordained.
Father Lynn lived through service in the U.S. army, a career, marriage, and parenthood before he heard the call. Both priests were ordained in December.
All four will speak at the Ordinandi Dinner at St. Helen’s Parish in Burnaby at 5:30 p.m. More information and registration is at www.rcav.org/newpriestsdinner.
