KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (OSV News) — A few days after Lucia Herman had her first child, Danny, she and her husband brought their infant son to Mass. Like Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel, Herman was so grateful to God for the gift of this new life.
“I presented him to God. I remember saying, ‘Here is your child. Thank you. Help me become the mother that you want me to be so he can be the person that you have created him to be,'” she told Extension Magazine, the quarterly publication of the Catholic Extension Society.
Thirty years later, Herman was in Mass at the Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in Knoxville, Tenn., alongside her husband, Deacon Joe Herman. This time, their son was at the altar, being ordained as a priest for the Diocese of Knoxville on June 8.
The Catholic Extension Society supported his seminarian education as well as the faith journey of this family. Each year the Chicago-based nonprofit supports 400 seminarians on their path to the priesthood.
And Herman played no small role in her son’s journey to the priesthood.
She raised him and her two other children in the faith, despite many challenges. Herman had grown up in southern Arizona, an area where many more people shared her faith. When the family moved to Mountain City in northeast Tennessee, she found herself living in a place in which Catholics were an extremely small minority. There was no Catholic church in their town. They had to drive to North Carolina just to attend Mass.
“People used to say that we were not Christian because we were Catholic,” she said.
Father Tom Vos, a priest who was trying to build a church in Mountain City, noticed Herman’s commitment to the faith.
“I remember Father Tom coming to our front door saying, ‘OK, Lucia. It’s up to you,'” she recalled. The priest told her that if she wanted her kids to learn about the Catholic faith, she would have to start teaching them.
She and a few other parents started teaching religious education classes from home to prepare their children to receive the sacraments
She joined other families in the effort to raise funds to build a church. They began by converting a storefront into a chapel. Father Herman said one of his first memories as a child was hanging a crucifix up on a pegboard in this temporary space.
As part of the fundraising effort, Lucia Herman wrote letters to every Catholic parish in the country that had the same name as their future church: St. Anthony of Padua.
“We had yard sales, we had bake sales, we had all sorts of things to raise money to build this church,” she said.
In 2001, with support from Catholic Extension Society, they finally completed their new church.
As Herman raised her three children, she always made sure that prayer was part of their lives. “Prayer is a lot more than just words,” she said. “It’s an ongoing conversation with God.”
Prayer is what led Father Danny Herman away from a military career and into the seminary.
Father Herman initially wanted to go into the medical field. He was studying pre-med in college when he met a recruiter and decided to become a naval aviator instead. He trained in the Navy’s flight school for three years.
He began to realize that he was searching for joy and satisfaction in acquiring things and obtaining notoriety.
“I gained more satisfaction from people’s opinion of me rather than what I was actually doing,” he told Extension Magazine. He realized that he was unhappy.
He was a few months away from “getting his wings” and committing the next eight years of his life to being a naval aviator when he realized that, although he was successful in his training, he knew that there was something more he was supposed to do.
“I heard a voice in my heart just saying, ‘You’re not meant for this. I made you for something else.’ And I knew it was God through a life of prayer with family, and I knew that this was a discerning moment,” Father Herman said.
His commanding officer, a man of faith, was supportive of his decision.
“He recognized that I wasn’t running away from anything,” Father Herman said. “He told me, ‘I think you’re running towards something. And he allowed me to work with the chaplains for my last six months in military service.”
Father Herman said he values the risk management skills that he developed during his time in the military and has a special appreciation for military members and their families.
Then, Father Herman told his mother about his big life change.
“When he told me he had the calling, I was not surprised,” Lucia Herman said. At the time she had been attending Holy Hour and praying before the Blessed Sacrament. She was praying for a priest that could shepherd the growing faith community in northeast Tennessee — someone who understood the people and cared for them.
She was also praying for her eldest son because she knew he was struggling to find his true purpose in life.
“And God has a sense of humor,” she recalled. “Danny comes up and says that he has a calling to become a priest.”
Herman said she understood God’s message to her: “Well, there you are, Lucia. You wanted a priest. I’m asking for your son.”
Father Herman is now serving as associate pastor at the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral Parish in Knoxville.
Father Herman said that during his time in seminary, he developed a greater appreciation for his mother.
“I have never gone once without knowing that my mother loved me,” he said. “She was always there. I wasn’t always appreciative of the sacrifices she made for me.”
Lucia Herman has a special devotion to Our Lady. “I know that with her help I have been able to raise my kids and be a good wife with her example,” she said.
“I see the greatness of God in my children,” she added. “When they were conceived, when they were in my womb; what a beautiful thing. … My children are my happiness; they are God’s graces. What better way than to return my eldest to him?”
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