Vocation Story

“Every Vocation Story is Unique”

Msgr. Thomas Gervasio

Today as part of “Called By Name” our diocesan effort to promote priestly vocations, priests have been asked to share their vocation story. Just as every priest is unique, so is the story of his vocation. My Italian friend, Fr. Luigi (Gigino) raised quite a few eyebrows when he entered the seminary since he was the last person people expected to be a priest. He was a troublemaker who swore and cursed continually. He would even throw eggs at the sacristy. As Luigi passed the church one day, at an hour it was usually closed, Luigi found the doors open and he felt a powerful urge to enter. He saw a priest seated in the confessional. Luigi said he then felt as if someone shoved him onto the kneeler. Overwhelmed, he began to weep and made a confession that set him on a new road. He never looked back. Coincidence? I think not. God was at work. Fr. Luigi has been a popular pastor for the past ten years.
 
My path to the priesthood was not as dramatic. While I thought of the priesthood fleetingly as a child, having grown up in the 60s and 70s, I had the strange idea that I could be an astronaut. Those were the heady years of our nation’s space program and I followed it intently. However, when I came down to earth, I seriously considered a more realistic goal—journalism. I could be a reporter or perhaps the next Walter Cronkite! But God had a different plan. The idea of priesthood became sharper during my senior year in high school.
 
As I look back over the years, I realize the Lord discreetly placed in my life circumstances and individuals that opened my eyes to a priestly vocation. No one pressured or even invited me to think about it, but the climate was there. My parents surely kept me grounded in faith and active in the parish. I was blessed to have an exemplary pastor whose love of the liturgy and selfless ministry attracted me. The Religious Teachers Filippini were also a force to be reckoned with.
 
Perhaps my Pastor perceived the seed of a vocation. He enlisted me for rectory duty...writing out Mass Cards, and taking messages. Those were the days when a human being actually answered the phone. There I saw the life of a priest close at hand, outside the sanctuary. I discovered priests were prayerful, encouraging, happy and fun-loving.
 
I was an altar server of course, but my career was interrupted when I quit after two years. I became disillusioned serving Mass because I was always assigned the earliest Mass—the Italian Mass! So I quit! Call it the folly of youth. I continued going to Mass every week but when Monsignor processed past my pew, I always felt he glared at me. I resumed serving in high school, when two Filippini Sisters, I am convinced, “schemed” one day to get me back into the sanctuary by insisting that I serve Benediction, a server was not assigned they said. One came to my house and gently dragged me to church. Her partner met me at the sacristy door and said, “Go in and serve and when you come out, you had better be an altar server!” I re-joined! What choice did I have?
 
Certainly the witness and support of my family and parish where the Mass was celebrated with great reverence and solemnity attracted me to the priesthood. I am convinced that the Lord calls men through the Eucharist.
 
So putting journalism aside and tearing up my application to Rider University, I entered the seminary —a period of study and discernment. I spent the next eight years in Maryland, first at St. Mary’s Seminary College, Baltimore and then Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary, Emmitsburg. I spent every summer vacation working at the NJ Department of Motor Vehicles. I also worked as a bus-boy and as a maintenance man at my parish.
 
Since my ordination in 1982, my priestly ministry has been in various parishes: Red Bank, Long Branch, West Long Branch, Trenton and of course, here in Hamilton. I have also held various diocesan positions.
 
Do I ever look back with some regret thinking I could have been married, taken a seat on the space shuttle, or replaced Dan Rather? Never! I would never trade the priestly vocation for any other vocation.
 
Celebrating Mass, preaching, hearing confessions, anointing the sick, sharing the joy of a baptism or wedding day and consoling a family at a funeral, being part of the great fraternity which is the priesthood, knowing the goodness and generosity of parishioners—these comprise the joys and the life-giving satisfactions of priestly life.
 
And do you know what? I highly recommend it!