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May 31, 2024By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press
Priests are happy. And they have a unique ability to bring people to God.
Those observations helped a man of the Worcester diocese pursue such a life, despite uncertainty. On June 1 Luke Andrew Johnson, now a transitional deacon, is to be ordained a priest at St. Paul Cathedral.
Deacon Johnson, son of Matt and Karen (Alleva) Johnson, was born July 31, 1987 in Fitchburg, and grew up at St. Edward the Confessor Parish in Westminster.
“My pastor was a good influence,” he said of Father Terence T. Kilcoyne, now pastor of Holy Trinity Parish in Harvard/Bolton. “He was a very happy priest. ... He loved what he did. ... There was this implicit sense that ... this was a good life.”
Deacon Johnson said he started discerning this vocation for himself his senior year at Oakmont Regional High School in Ashburnham. He talked to Father Kilcoyne, who pointed him to Father James S. Mazzone, then director of the Office for Vocations.
After attending some vocations retreats “I discerned that I wasn’t ready,” Deacon Johnson said. “So, I decided to go to college and continue discerning.”
He studied biotechnology, earning his associate’s degree at Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner in 2009 and his bachelor’s at Worcester State University in 2012.
While in college he decided he wasn’t ready to pursue priesthood, he said. He focused on school, then work, working in biomanufacturing for Bristol Myers Squibb on the Devens campus.
As he was planning his future, “God started … to renew that call that I felt when I was in high school,” Deacon Johnson said. “I started serious discernment again. …
“I was still hesitant … I think because I had a view and a plan of where my life was going … [with a] job, marriage and starting a family. I didn’t fully trust that by giving myself over to God I’d be happier and more fulfilled. … Finally, after two years of discernment on my own, I had to make an act of faith.”
Still “uncertain,” he met with Father Mazzone.
“He helped me clarify things and discern a little more clearly,” Deacon Johnson said. “Finally, God gave me the courage [to decide], ‘I’m going to trust … He’ll lead me wherever I need to be.’”
Deacon Johnson applied and was accepted to study for the priesthood for the Worcester diocese and was sent to St. John’s Seminary in Brighton.
“I learned a lot,” he said. “As I learned, my faith grew, but I still had that uncertainty about priesthood. At the end of my first year, I started my first summer assignment” at St. Denis Parish in Douglas, working with Father Juan D. Escudero, then pastor there and now pastor of St. Rose of Lima Parish in Northborough.
“It was really that summer in the parish that solidified my vocation and my call,” Deacon Johnson said. He was able to “shadow the priest [and] observe the ways he’s able to enter into people’s lives,” he said.
“I’d never gotten to see that side of priesthood before,” he said. “I gained a better understanding of what the priesthood is. I said, ‘This is what I want to do with my life.’”
Why?
“The priest is able to encounter people in a way no one else can” – not just as himself, but also as Christ – “in the way he’s able, through grace, to bring people closer to God, primarily sacramentally,” Deacon Johnson replied.
“When the priest meets someone, it’s not just, ‘Here I am and here’s what I’m going to do for you,’ but ‘Let me show you what God wants to do for you.’”
The seminarian found that “there’s something about that idea that draws you,” like the disciples being drawn to Jesus. “That was the moment I knew this was something I wanted … that I could see fulfilling me,” he explained.
“I resolved to return to seminary … and continue following that call. So, I went back again, and again and again, and here I am. Each year I’ve grown in a new way … always toward that same call.”
He had summer assignments at more parishes: Annunciation in Gardner, St. George in Worcester, and St. John, Guardian of Our Lady in Clinton, his diaconate assignment.
“Now I’m almost there” at ordination day, he said. “It’s exciting.”
Deacon Johnson said his family has been very supportive of him. Family includes his parents, his brother, and his brother’s wife and children, who are to be at his ordination, along with extended family coming from out of state.
“I’m ready to go out and put into practice everything I’ve been preparing for,” he said. “I don’t quite know what to expect. … I’m excited to see what God’s going to do. That’s the goal – to be open and let God accomplish whatever he intends.”
– Editor’s note: The new priest is to celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving at 11 a.m. June 2 at St. Edward the Confessor Parish in Westminster, and celebrate or concelebrate all the Lord’s Day Masses at St. John, Guardian of Our Lady Parish in Clinton the weekend of June 8 and 9.
