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A journey from teaching to preaching

Posted on by Cori Urban

Father Dallas St. Peter admits it: He is a perpetual student.

The pastor of St. Mark Church in Burlington likes to learn about his Catholic faith, technology, how to fix things and yes, how to improve his golf game.

“I’m always open to learning and seeing things [like his understanding of God and his life as a priest] change for the good because of it,” said the former teacher at St. Francis Xavier School in Winooski and Rice Memorial High School in South Burlington. “I realize I always have something to learn, and I’m learning as I teach and am open to that learning.”

For Father St. Peter, teaching and learning go hand in hand with his vocation to the priesthood.

Born in Burlington, the third of the five children of Ralph and Carol St. Peter, he was raised in St. Albans, a member of Holy Angels Parish. He graduated from Bellows Free Academy St. Albans in 1989 then earned a bachelor’s degree in math in 1993 from the University of Vermont.

He first worked as a teacher’s assistant then took a job as an actuary before finding himself drawn back to education; he taught religion and history or fourth grade over three years at St. Francis Xavier School.

“The priesthood had been kind of swinging in my mind from high school,” he said, but he only told a few people close to him. Others asked him if he had ever considered such a vocation, and that “kept the idea fresh” in his mind.

He used to attend morning Mass at Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Burlington before heading off to St. Francis Xavier to teach, so he brought up the topic of a vocation with then-pastor Msgr. Thomas Ball.

Two other priests — Msgr. Michael DeForge and Msgr. Richard Lavalley — helped him make the decision to go back to teaching and also to enter the seminary after discerning a career and possible marriage.

“I had found a career — teaching — and had a good, serious relationship with a woman, but still this decision about the priesthood, this invitation was very present,” he said.

Though he had been “doing what I wanted to do,” he came to take seriously the question, “What do I really want to do, my will or God’s?”

Once he made the decision to enter the seminary, he was all in. “The only way I’d have left was if I was asked to leave,” he said. “I felt that this was what God wants me to do.”

He spent six years at Mount St. Mary Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where he earned a master of divinity degree and a master of arts in moral theology. He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Burlington in 2007.

Father St. Peter first served as parochial vicar of Mater Dei Parish in Newport, Derby Line and West Charleston; then he was assigned to St. Joseph’s in Burlington while teaching full- or part-time at Rice. Five years ago he was assigned to be the administrator of St. Mark Parish and is now pastor.

Education is important not just because of the material learned, he said, but because of the lessons learned about such things as good study habits, discipline, patience, working with others, being a good citizen and problem solving.

The greatest skills he learned in his math studies was problem solving and how to look at challenges from different angles. “That’s a very helpful skill in life in general, but especially for teaching” he said.

Though his “priestly heart” comes first, one of his primary priestly ministries is teaching. He enjoys classroom teaching in the St. Mark’s Family Faith Formation program, and he enjoys learning as he teaches. “Whenever you’re teaching, you get a greater knowledge of the material as you teach it, and you learn at a greater depth than you did as a student,” he said.

“Being a perpetual student makes you a better teacher,” the priest said.

—Originally published in the Fall 2020 issue of Vermont Catholic magazine.

A journey back to faith after divorce

Posted on by Cori Urban

For 20 years Mary-Margaret Carroll was away from the Catholic Church of her childhood, and it was all because of a misunderstanding.

She was married young, and after the marriage ended in divorce, she thought she was no longer welcomed at Mass, so she stopped attending.

Carroll, now a member of St. Jude Church in Hinesburg, is a graphic designer for the Diocese of Burlington. She recently shared her story of falling away from the Church and finding her way back.

Born in Maine and raised in Malden, Massachusetts, she and her younger brother were raised Catholic. Her mother was of French Canadian descent; her father was English and Irish.

After graduating from Regis College in Weston, Massachusetts with a bachelor’s degree in fine art in 1989, she was married in what she called “a big Catholic wedding,” and she continued to practice her faith.

But the marriage lasted only four years.

The divorce was “really, really hard for me,” said Carroll, 51. Family members were angry and disappointed, though her parents had divorced before she got married.

Carroll was under the misguided impression that divorced persons were automatically excommunicated.

Living in metro Boston, she “parish hopped” and had no priest she felt she could turn to for help. “I stopped going to church and just moved on to other things,” she said. “Word was an annulment was hard to get and extremely expensive. That’s what people said. … I had a whole lot of misinformation.”

In fact, civil divorce does not mean a person is excommunicated.

While away from the Church, Carroll “felt something was missing,” but when she did go to church for weddings or funerals, she felt angry because she thought she was unwelcome because she was divorced.

But she never felt drawn to another faith community, and she continued to be what she called “culturally Catholic,” celebrating Christmas and Easter, for example, but in a secular way.

In 2010 Carroll was married for the second time, in a civil ceremony at home in Huntington. She was 41, and she and her husband, Shawn — a baptized Lutheran who did not go to church — wanted children, “so we had no time to spare.”

Her son, Thomas, now eight, was born nine months after the wedding. Daughter Elizabeth is now four.

Throughout the changes in her life, Carroll remained close to her uncle and godfather, Bob Mulligan, who sometimes visited her in Vermont. He “pleasantly nagged” her about going to church and prayed that she would.

During one visit he asked her to go to Sunday Mass, and they settled on the 9:30 a.m. Mass at St. Jude Church in Hinesburg, simply because it was a convenient time. She’d never been there, and her first visit was on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. During Mass, the members of the congregation renewed their baptismal vows. “I was feeling very emotional,” she recalled. “I couldn’t believe I was back here at church.”

As the pastor, Edmundite Father David Cray, sprinkled holy water on the people, Carroll felt a wave of warmth come over her, and “a voice said to me, ‘You belong here. You should be here,’” she recalled.

She planned to return the next week “to see how it goes,” and she began to think about getting her children baptized.

She began to go to Mass every week, and her husband and mother, Sheri Jones, thought it was just a phase.

But she kept going.

After about a month she spoke with Father Cray about getting the children baptized and getting an annulment: the former happened in 2015 and the latter in 2016. Also in 2016, her second marriage was convalidated (sometimes referred to as the blessing of a marriage).

“He set everything straight for me,” Carroll said of the parish priest. “I felt amazed. I was so happy! All these years I thought I was this black sheep and not welcome. That was not the case at all.”

Now Carroll — a soft-spoken woman with rimless glasses — is an assistant religious education teacher who coordinates art projects for children’s Masses at St. Jude’s and is enrolled in the Lay Formation Program of the Diocese of Burlington.

To be part of the life of the Church is fulfilling and exciting for her, and now she is turning her attention to evangelizing — to leading by example and catechizing through education. “I always felt proud to be Catholic,” she said.

—Originally published in the Fall issue of Vermont Catholic magazine.

 

A heart on fire for Christ

Posted on by Cori Urban

When Father Curtis Miller made his confirmation, he chose St. John Vianney — the patron saint of priests — as his confirmation saint. “Through persistent pastoral labors, humble faith in God and dedication to his parishioners, St. John Vianney transformed his parish from a place of spiritual apathy to a place of religious zeal and even a destination of pilgrimages,” said the administrator of Most Holy Trinity Parish, which consists of St. John Vianney Church in Irasburg, Conversion of St. Paul Church in Barton and St. Theresa Church in Orleans. “He especially devoted a lot of time to making himself available for confession for many hours a day, serving as an instrument of God’s mercy.”

Other saints that have influenced Father Miller’s priesthood are Pope St. John Paul II and St. Therese of Lisieux. The former was the pope during the first 15 years of Father Miller’s life: “He preached the Gospel of Jesus with passion and also set a powerful example of trusting God by enduring many years of declining health with faith.”

St. Therese inspired him to offer up even his humblest tasks and duties out of love for God: “God doesn’t call us to do great things, but rather to do small things with great love.”

Said Father Miller: “The saints show us that it’s possible to live a life of heroic holiness in any vocation or walk of life. In fact, the saints show us that to follow God’s call is the best way to live a fulfilled and happy life, even in spite of the challenges that come along the way.”

He was born in St. Johnsbury in 1990 to Ed and Judy Miller. His father was a state trooper who moved there from Boston, and his mother is a native Vermonter who grew up on a dairy farm in Sheffield.

Father Miller has an older sister, Caitlyn, who is married and has one daughter.

When he was young, the family moved to Colchester and joined Our Lady of Grace Parish.

“Growing up, our Catholic faith was very important to us,” Father Miller said. “My mother converted to Catholicism after she married my Catholic father, and she and I were baptized together (me as an infant). Participating in Sunday Mass every week and attending religious education classes were essential priorities.”

Mr. Miller set a good example of going to Mass with his family every week, “even in spite of the very demanding schedule of a state trooper,” said Father Miller, who was an altar server.

“Because our parents set such a good example of practicing our faith, the thought of a vocation began to grow in my mind, even without me being consciously aware of it,” he recalled. In his freshman year in high school, he attended a diocesan retreat and had a lot of time to pray and reflect. At that time, he first became aware that he felt God calling him to the priesthood.

“When I told my family and friends that I was discerning a call to the priesthood, I was surprised that so many of them said that they had always seen that in me,” he said.

With the help and encouragement of his pastor, Father Jay Haskin, he applied to the seminary in his senior year of high school and later entered Our Lady of Providence Seminary in Providence, Rhode Island, with studies at Providence College.

Four years later, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and then began his final four years of formation at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton. He graduated with a master’s of divinity and a master’s in theology, with a focus on Catholic social doctrine.

Burlington Bishop Christopher Coyne ordained him a priest in 2016, and he was assigned to Corpus Christi Parish in St. Johnsbury, Lyndonville and Danville. “It was special to be assigned in the parish where I was born and baptized,” said Father Miller, who enjoys hiking, snowshoeing and reading biographies and history books — especially American and Vermont history.

After three years as parochial vicar at Corpus Christi Parish, he was assigned as administrator at Most Holy Trinity Parish.

He is now following the early stages of the process of canonization for Stowe native Brother Joseph Dutton who served his country during the Civil War, endured the heartbreak of a failed marriage, overcame alcoholism, converted to Catholicism and dedicated the second four decades of his life to serving people afflicted with leprosy in Hawaii. “He knew the danger of contracting this disease himself after witnessing the illness and death of his friend, St. Damien, there, yet still he remained to serve,” said Father Miller who also is following the final stages of the canonization of Blessed Franz Jagerstatter, an Austrian farmer and faithful husband and father who refused to serve in the Nazi army and died as a martyr of faith and conscience.

“It’s been said that the saints find us,” Father Miller said. “Often the saint whose prayers or example we most need at a given time appears at just the right moment in life. This is a gift of God’s providence.”

—Originally published in the Summer 2020 issue of Vermont Catholic magazine.

 

A ‘great’ day in Island Pond: St. James the Greater community marks 150th anniversary

Posted on by Cori Urban

It was a great day for Catholics in Island Pond July 25.

Parishioners of St. James the Greater Church celebrated the 150th anniversary of the establishment of a Catholic parish with a resident priest there. Burlington Bishop Christopher Coyne celebrated the 11 a.m. Mass that was followed by a brunch.

“Despite changes in the Church and in the world, you are still here,” he said, noting the rich history of the parish.

In 1853 a group of Irish Catholic laborers came to the area to help build the railroad. When their work was complete, many remained in the Island Pond area to work on the railroad, in the lumber industry, on farms or in businesses. Early settlers also include Catholic French-Canadian families.

When Bishop Coyne asked members of the full congregation how many of them had received sacraments in the church, many raised their hands. “There is a lot of history in this place in terms of your family history.”

It is the faith of the people who come to church that make the building a church, he said. “The most important thing about this church is you and your gathering together, your faith.”

Bishop Coyne explained that God works through the “normal realities of life,” using simple things like water, bread and oil to bring about “something incredible” through the sacraments.

Three boys from the parish received their First Communion from the bishop during the 150thanniversary celebration Mass. One of them, Braxton Lyons, said he was excited to receive the sacrament from the bishop. “Church is good,” he said, “because Jesus is here,” and he plans to attend Mass and receive Communion every Sunday.

His mother, Melissa Lyons, said it was exciting to be part of the history of the church by attending the anniversary celebration at which her son received First Communion. “It was pretty amazing to have the opportunity to do this with the bishop. It was awesome,” she said. “We have such a small church, but it’s family, and it’s growing,” she said.

Brett Gervais, 27, has been attending St. James Church all his life. “It’s important to all of us, he said. “We’ve been coming here every Sunday our whole lives.” St. James Church is now Part of Mater Dei Parish and is served by Vocationist priests who live in the rectory at St. Mary Star of the Sea Church in Newport.

Margaret (Foy) Morrill lived next door to St. James Church when she was growing up and went to the parish school. She now lives in Newport but returned to Island Pond for the church celebration. “This is home,” she said. “The memories. …”

Leo Casavant has been attending St. James Church for 46 years and said he was happy to have the bishop visit the church: “It’s good for him to be here.”

One of the parish coordinators and an organizer of the 150th anniversary celebration, Anita Gervais, said the fact that the church remains open after so many years is cause for celebration. “We provide a lot of spiritual help for the community. We need this church,” she said. And in light of the lifting of Covid-19-related restrictions on gatherings, she said the anniversary celebration was a great reason for the parish to gather.

According to Vocationist Father Rijo Johnson, pastor of Mater Dei Parish, the anniversary was a “time to be alive” after the pandemic’s restrictions. “Our people love to be in church,” he said, pointing to a congregation filled with persons of all ages from toddlers to seniors. “They wanted to be back.”

“It’s beautiful to be here,” he added. “Feel the joy!”

A half dozen members of the clergy joined the bishop in the sanctuary for the Mass, and the church was decorated with gold ribbons and “150” ribbons on wreaths on the pillars and historic photographs. Members of the Knights of Columbus were present.

The first bishop of Burlington, Bishop Louis deGoësbriand, invited the pastor in Stanhope, Quebec, to minister to the Catholics in Island Pond and other nearby communities. A wooden church — 24 feet by 36 feet — was built in Island Pond in 1859. Priests from Quebec continued to serve the church.

A larger church opened in 1868; it could hold 500 people. Father Joseph-Eusebe Amedee Dufresne and was the first resident pastor of St. James Church. The current church built in the Roman style is 58 feet by 115 feet; its cornerstone was laid in 1898, and it was dedicated in 1899. The Island Pond parish once included a school and convent.

Craig Goulet, a lifelong parishioner who welcomed everyone to the 150th anniversary Mass, described the parish community as “faithful, loving and spiritual.”

Bishop Coyne offered his prayer that parishioners would continue to be “a holy people doing holy things … spreading the Good News that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

 

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‘A great athlete and a great Christian gentleman’: Catholic high school prays for critically injured Bills safety and alumnus

Posted on by Our Sunday Visitor

The Central Catholic High School community in Pittsburgh is joining in prayer for NFL player Damar Hamlin, a 2016 school graduate, who was critically injured during a Jan. 2 game between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals.

Hamlin, a safety for the Bills, collapsed after tackling Bengals receiver Tee Higgins during a routine play. According to a statement by the Buffalo Bills, the 24-year-old safety suffered a cardiac arrest following the hit.

Medics worked for nearly 10 minutes to restore his heartbeat as Bills team and staff members knelt in a tight prayer circle around Hamlin. Hamlin was then transferred to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he remains in critical condition. Players, staff and commentators were visibly shaken by the incident, and the game – the last Monday Night Football match of the regular season – was suspended.

The NFL has posted an image of Hamlin’s team number with the words “Pray for Damar” across its social media accounts.

The Hamlin family released a statement online Jan. 3 asking supporters to “please keep Damar in your prayers,” noting they were “deeply moved by the prayers, kind words and donations from fans around the country.”

In a Jan. 3 statement sent to OSV News, Central Catholic called Hamlin a “highly respected young man” who “has been an integral part of our Catholic Lasallian Community and regularly returns to Central to speak with participants of our football camps.”

A photograph provided by the school to OSV News showed Hamlin in his high school football uniform holding a poster that read, “Recruited by Jesus.”

Central Catholic president Christian Brother Mike Andrejko asked in the statement that “the Lord be with (Hamlin) and hold him in the palm of his hand.”

The school’s recently retired head football coach Terry Totten described Hamlin in the statement as “a great athlete and a great Christian gentleman who is a man for others,” one who is “an essential part of the community at Central Catholic.”

Totten also pointed to Hamlin’s “unparalleled” work in the Pittsburgh community through the athlete’s charitable foundation, The Chasing M’s Foundation Community Toy Drive, which he started just before his selection in the sixth round of the 2021 NFL draft.

On its Facebook page, Central Catholic posted a message stating its community “is praying for the well-being and swift recovery” of Hamlin, adding: “May the Lord be with him and his family during this most difficult time.”

As of Jan. 3, the post had garnered some 2,500 shares and almost 400 responses, which included a number of heartfelt prayers.

“We humbly pray to Thee, Dear God, in Jesus’ Name, to heal Damar Hamlin,” wrote Miran Liza Mientus. “And please, Dear God, provide comfort for his dear Parents and Family, the Bills, the Bengals, and All who love him. How beautiful to see countless people come together in prayer for him.”

Amy Smyth Miller posted the text of the Memorare prayer to Mary, while others invoked the intercession of St. John the Baptist, St. Jude, St. Sebastian, Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos and the late Pope Benedict XVI.

One poster added a link to an undated video of Hamlin recorded during his high school years for the Pittsburgh Steelers Youth Football Show. As part of the interview, Hamlin shared that he had chosen the player number three because it was a “family number,” one his own father had worn.

He also said that Central Catholic was “big on tradition,” and that “the name and the school … means a lot not just to the coaches, but the alumni. … You know you’re not playing for just yourself and your family; you’re also playing for the name and the tradition.”

Hamlin’s Twitter timeline over the past two years includes multiple expressions of faith and gratitude, along with support for friends and fellow athletes.

“I see myself through God’s eyes, not anyone else’s,” he wrote Dec. 8, 2020.

A post from the previous month read “from losses to lessons to blessings. Thank you, God!”

— Gina Christian

A good education

Posted on by Fr. Steven Marchand

There’s a common joke in religious education that the answer to every question in religion class is “Jesus.”

I once made the mistake of sharing that with students in a class, and for the next three weeks, the only answer I ever received to any question was “Jesus,” delivered with a knowing smile.

There is, of course, a kernel of truth here. As the Word of God made flesh, the fulfillment of the law and prophets, the perfect man, God-among-us, the whole of the cosmos is recapitulated and made new in the person of Jesus Christ. St. John expresses this beautifully in the prologue to his Gospel: “All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made” (Jn 1:3), which Paul echoes in the letter to the Romans: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things” (Rom 11:36).

Now, this is either true or it isn’t. As believers, we affirm that it is true. This centrality of Christ is reflected in the centrality of crucifix, tabernacle, and altar in Catholic churches. St. John Henry Newman saw its ramifications for education. Writing about the nature of university education, Newman contended that to not teach theology in schools is to deny a foundational and necessary aspect of human knowledge. Those universities and schools which do not include theology as part-and-parcel of the curriculum are not true universities at all. By excluding theology, they betray their claim to be institutions exploring universal, or all, learning.

Who, then, is the best teacher of the knowledge of God? Say it with me — “Jesus,” of course. This is why we as Catholics live not “by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). We hang on to Jesus’ words, or gather them up as so many pearls of great price. In the words and deeds of Jesus we find the culmination and personification of the entire pedagogy of God throughout salvation history.

And how does He teach? What is His method? He teaches primarily through parable and metaphor. In other words, imagination. The Gospels are teeming with imaginative examples drawn from creation. The one “through whom all things were made” now uses these very things as a bridge to bring us from creature to creator. We might even say that creation was made from the beginning to serve this very purpose.

Who can forget what Jesus says when He commissions His disciples? He does not send them as bloodless facilitators of an abstract something. He sends them as “sheep among wolves” who must be as “cunning as serpents and yet innocent as doves” preaching Him who is the “bread of life,” giving us His “flesh for true food, and [His] blood for true drink.” To help us understand what it means to reject God, Jesus tells us of a householder who plants a vineyard and has a right to its fruit. He sends his son, the heir, to gather it up, but the workers of the vineyard cast him out and slay him. If we do accept Him, our faith is like a “mustard seed, which grows into the greatest of plants, in which all the birds of the sky find rest.” When He wants to teach us about the forgiveness of sins, he performs a miracle of healing and orders the man to “take up your mat and walk” so that we have an image for what takes place in the soul.

How, then, does Jesus teach? By moving us from the natural to the supernatural. Jesus came down to Earth so that He might lift us up to heaven. Or as the medieval school-men would put it, God’s supernatural grace is freely bestowed on us to raise up and perfect our human nature.

Jesus gives us an example from experience or nature to teach divine things. Our imagination is what bridges the gap; it allows us to see the divine in the ordinary.

It takes a good and powerful imagination to understand what God wants to do in our lives, what it means to follow Him. A good education will cultivate that sense of wonder that is necessary for the imagination to take flight. These are the natural things on which a supernatural life of faith can be built. Without it, we can sputter with C.S. Lewis’s Professor Kirk, “What do they teach them in these schools?!”

If we would grow in faith, we must become like little children and sit at the feet of the divine master and teacher. To whom shall we go? Why, to Jesus, of course.

— Father Steven Marchand is administrator of St. Ambrose Church in Bristol and St. Peter Church in Vergennes.

—Originally published in the Fall 2023 issue of Vermont Catholic magazine.