Vocations

A spiritual journey that began seven years ago ended in the sanctuary of a Catonsville convent Sept. 3 when 10 Episcopal nuns and their priest chaplain were received into full communion with the Catholic Church.

After seven years of prayer and discernment, a community of Episcopal nuns and their chaplain will be received into the Roman Catholic Church during a Sept. 3 Mass celebrated by Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien.

What makes St. Mary’s different from other seminaries is its Sulpician approach to preparing men for the priesthood, according to Sulpician Father Thomas Hurst, president-rector.

Halfway through his first year at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Roland Park, Christopher de Leon looked spent.

When Hamilton Okeke stepped into his room at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Roland Park for the first time, the enormity of what he was doing seemed to hit him in the gut. He was alone, literally and figuratively, as he was about to hand his life over to God. No one in his inner circle supported his desire to become a priest.

It’s no accident that St. Peter the Apostle in Libertytown has five men in formation to become archdiocesan priests and one woman preparing to take her vows as a Daughter of St. Paul.