Seminarian is grateful to those who make education possible

By Bill Doyle | CFP Correspondent

After Isaac Cross graduated from Thomas Aquinas College in California in 2019, the Leominster resident helped his alma mater start a satellite campus in Northfield.

He worked in student life and the development office for a while, but then decided to look for something different to do. That’s when he began hearing God’s call to enter the priesthood.

Mr. Cross, 26, wasn’t 100 percent certain he wanted to become a priest, but he said it was a testament to the Worcester Diocese because it paid his bills anyway when he entered Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Maryland in August of 2021.

“They want to give men the best possible chance to discern their call,” he said.

By October of 2022, he lost any doubt about becoming a priest.

“That’s what a big part of seminary is,” he said. “It’s listening more intently and finding out what God wants you to do.”

Partners in Charity, the Worcester Diocese’s annual fundraiser that supports more than 25 charitable, educational and pastoral ministries, is paying for Mr. Cross and 16 other men to attend seminary this year. Two of them will be ordained as deacons and two will be ordained as priests in a few months.

“If we want to have priests to work in our parishes,” said Father Donato Infante, director of the Office for Vocations in the diocese, “if we want more men to get ordained, we have to fund their training. So without Partners in Charity, without the contributions of the people of God, there will not be any future priests for our diocese.”

In 2023, Partners in Charity paid $632,535 for seminarians education.

Partners in Charity is relying on donations from parishioners to reach its overall goal of raising $5 million this year.

“It’s very humbling the amount of support that people give to all the seminarians,” Mr. Cross said, “people that don’t know us individually from a hole in the wall. They don’t know us personally, but they are so dedicated to the church and to the priesthood.”

The average cost to attend the seminary is $45,000. Mr. Cross said he’s not sure how much Partners in Charity pays for his education, but PIC pays for everything, including tuition, room, board and books.

Mr. Cross said it would have been incredibly difficult for him to pay for his own seminarian education and he’s not sure if he could have done it. So he feels indebted to everyone who has helped him follow his heart.

“Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” he said.

Mr. Cross’s older brother, Patrick, actually considered the priesthood before he did and prompted him to think about it as well. In addition to being a big brother, Patrick, 32, has been a Norbertine Brother at St. Michael’s Abbey in Silverado, California, since August of 2022.
    
The Cross brothers haven’t been able to talk a lot lately because as a Norbertine Brother, Patrick is allowed only limited communication.

“Even though we don’t talk a lot,” Mr. Cross said. “We do have a connection. We’re both praying the Liturgy of the Hours together and we’re both going through the same discernment process. I’ve gotten a lot closer to him even though he’s farther away.”

Patrick plans to eventually become a priest as well, but in California.
Mr. Cross was inspired by his pastor at St. John, Guardian of Our Lady Parish, in Clinton, Father James Mazzone, and the chaplain at Thomas Aquinas in Northfield, Father Greg Markey.

“I had this desire to bring people the truth and bring them salvation and be an instrument of God’s grace,” he said.

Mr. Cross is scheduled to graduate from the seminary in the spring of 2027 and become ordained as a deacon. He’ll then spend time as a deacon in a parish in the diocese before being ordained a priest.

Mr. Cross said he had planned while growing up to become a husband and a father, but serving God became more important to him.

“The crucifix is the image of our faith - Christ on the cross,” he said. “We’re all called to be like Christ and to live a life of sacrificial love. That took a while to realize. I’m going to spend a lifetime realizing that, but the big thing for me to initially overcome was that God was asking me to sacrifice the desire of being a husband and a father for the sake of his church.”

Of course, with a name like Cross, he seemed destined to become a priest.
“I know, exactly,” Mr. Cross said. “My parents did my discernment for me.”
He’s the youngest of five children. He said his parents, Rick and Therese Cross, have been very supportive of his and his brother’s decisions to enter the priesthood.

“I’ve been blessed with an incredibly faithful Catholic family,” he said. “My parents, they planted the first seed that has blossomed into this vocation. They were the first ones to teach us how to love Christ and how to love his church.”

Mr. Cross said he was attracted to teaching people the faith from the pulpit, preaching the word as Christ and his apostles did.

“Being able to give people Jesus and the Eucharist,” he said. “That just kind of set my heart on fire - to be the instrument of God’s grace in that intimate union between us and God, between us and Christ.”

This summer, Mr. Cross will work the Totus Tuus program in the diocese with his friend and fellow Mount St. Mary’s seminarian John Sullivan. The two both graduated from the same high school, Trivium School in Lancaster, and both attend St. John, Guardian of Our Lady.

Mr. Cross started as a soccer goalie at Trivium and he plays the same position for Mount St. Mary’s, which plays other seminaries. He also plays the piano and he’s learning to play guitar, but his singing voice is his strongest musical instrument. He directed a choir for two years in college and occasionally directs choirs for friends’ weddings.

His singing voice will come in handy as a priest. He joked that being able to sing the Exsultet at the Easter Vigil Mass would be enough reason for him to become a priest.

“He is exceptionally brilliant,” Father Infante said. “Also, very well rounded. He’s a normal guy. Anyone could relate to him, but he’s incredibly intelligent. His professors will say about him that his papers in class are things you could publish in academic journals, that they are above and beyond what they normally expect from a seminarian term paper. He’s very prayerful and hard working. He’s exactly the type of man that we want to become a priest in our diocese.”

Photo submitted by Father Stephen M. Gemme

Worcester diocesan seminarian Brian James meets Pope Francis on Aug. 20, 2023. Mr. James is a member of a class at the Pontifical North American College in Rome which the pope invited to a private audience, so as to meet the new seminarians studying for the various dioceses of the United States. The Holy Father also included the class in the Sunday Angelus after the audience. Mr. James said, “It was a wonderful experience, and I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to meet the Holy Father.”




















Photo Courtesy of Pontifical North American College

Three seminarians from the Diocese of Worcester who are in the Class of 2027 at the Pontifical North American College were instituted as lectors on Jan. 14 by Cardinal Fernando Filoni. From left: Jakob Pohlman from Whitinsville, Christopher Tillotson from North Brookfield and Brian James from Webster. The liturgy took place in the college chapel.