Dcns. Timothy Sanchez, Brady Gagne and Aaron Siehr will be ordained to the priesthood May 17 for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Milwaukee. (Photo courtesy of Saint Francis de Sales Seminary)
Priesthood: A Vocation to Share Joy, Give — Timothy Sanchez
- Home parish: St. Robert, Shorewood
- Teaching parish: Catholic Community of Waukesha (St. John Neumann, St. Joseph, St. Mary, St. William), soon to be renamed Corpus Christi Parish and School
- Parish assignment: Associate pastor, Catholic Community of Eight in Racine — Sacred Heart, St. Edward, St. John Nepomuk, St. Joseph, St. Lucy, St. Patrick, St. Richard and St. Sebastian (Racine Southeast)
- Favorite scripture verse: And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent; but he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; rise, he is calling you.” And throwing off his mantle he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him, “Master, let me receive my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way. (Mark 10:48-52)
JAY SORGI
SPECIAL TO THE CATHOLIC HERALD
When you mention to Dcn. Timothy Sanchez that he will become a priest in a scant couple of weeks, the bubbling smile on his face shares his feelings even before his words do.
“If you can tell, there’s a lot of excitement,” he says with a genuinely giddy laugh. “I’m really excited for it.”
Dcn. Sanchez is one of three seminarians at Saint Francis de Sales Seminary who will be ordained to the priesthood May 17 at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, Milwaukee.
He recently said that the journey God led him on to the excitement of priesthood has lasted about half of his life, as he first thought about such a vocation while he was being homeschooled at age 15.
“I happened to go to a vocation retreat out at Schoenstatt (Retreat Center in Waukesha) with the Schoenstatt Fathers. It was great. I thought, ‘Well, wow, maybe God’s asking me to be a priest.’ I thought about that for a number of years,” he said.
“Then when I was in college, I thought, ‘No, that’s not really for me.’”
The self-proclaimed introvert instead spent those collegiate years at Marquette University focusing on applied statistics and had been looking toward graduate school, but a call to ministry awakened in him.
“I deferred for a year and took a year as a Brew City Catholic missionary for the young adult college campus ministry here in Milwaukee, at UWM and MSOE. In that way of life, you have to pray a holy hour every day,” he said.
“I started noticing that I wanted to pray for my brother (Fr. Edward Sanchez, now pastor of the South Shore Parishes in Milwaukee), who was in seminary. Then after another month, I noticed I wanted to pray for Fr. Luke (Strand, now the rector of Saint Francis de Sales Seminary), who was vocation director at the time. After another month, all of a sudden, the idea pops into my head: ‘Hey, Tim, how about seminary?’”
Two months of discernment later, he answered the call.
Dcn. Sanchez said that understanding two charisms within him clinched the move toward the priesthood.
“People talk about the joy that I have a lot, which I guess is true. I am a pretty joyful person, but I would never have thought that if someone hadn’t told me,” he said.
“(Giving) was the one that I was thinking about most when I was discerning; I was realizing I don’t just want to give things, I want to give everything. And to make the most complete gift I possibly can, what’s the way I could do that? The thought that came to me first was, well, the priesthood.”
Sanchez said a pair of illuminating moments confirmed this calling for him. One of them came through directly ministering to the faithful. The others came right at the altar.
“I was helping at a young adult retreat and there was a moment where I had a taste of spiritual fatherhood. I had a conversation with someone that was really impactful for them, and I walked away from the retreat later on, remembering that conversation, that person, and carrying them in my heart and praying for them. That was a huge moment,” he said.
“A very recent one last year (was) the experience of kissing the altar for the first time as a deacon … it’s like nothing else. It just moved me.”
Dcn. Sanchez says he has a lot to learn about the grouping of parishes he’ll be serving and about the people there, but his new pastor suggested bringing lots of flexibility — and room for the Holy Spirit to move — to his new vocation.
“What’s it going to be like to be a priest? It’s not something I actually know yet, but the little moments of feeling the Holy Spirit’s guidance give an awful lot of confidence.”
That confidence comes through in a contagiously energetic smile, one that he’ll be sure to share in his new calling.
Slinger Native Answers Steady Call — Brady Gagne
- Home Parish: St. Peter Parish, Slinger
- Teaching Parish: Francis Borgia, Cedarburg
- Parish Assignment: Associate pastor, St. Frances Cabrini and St. Mary’s Immaculate Conception, West Bend
- Favorite Scripture Verse: Psalm 16; “I love this psalm as it reminds me that my happiness lies in the Lord.
KAREN MAHONEY
SPECIAL TO THE CATHOLIC HERALD
It has been there since he was a young boy: the still, quiet voice, the tug at his heart and the subtle call to serve as a priest.
It was there through Catholic elementary school at St. Peter Catholic School in Slinger, Slinger Middle School and St. Mary’s Springs Academy in Fond du Lac.
Dcn. Brady Gagne, 25, remembers those first vocational stirrings while participating in a grade school project at Saint Francis de Sales Seminary. He was to write about a day in the life of a seminarian. Fr. Ryan Pruess, who grew up at St. Peter and is now pastor of Holy Family in Fond du Lac, arranged the visit to the seminary in St. Francis.
“I had a connection through him. He gave us a seminary tour, and we went to the noon Mass. Through that experience, I felt a call to the priesthood,” he explained. “I was this 9- or 10-year-old kid at the time and continued to feel the call through middle school.”
Dcn. Gagne eventually attended Saint Francis de Sales and will be ordained to the priesthood with two classmates May 17 at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, Milwaukee.
He recently recalled how God continued to call him following his childhood visit.
“I went to discernment camps in the summer and got to know many priests and seminarians. I loved witnessing their life of faith, joy and the closeness with one another — it was a real brotherhood,” Dcn. Gagne said.
In high school, he spent a summer working at the Basilica and National Shrine of Mary Help of Christians at Holy Hill as a sacristan and janitor. He got to know the Carmelites and grew close to God through Eucharistic Adoration and immersion into Carmelite life.
“It was so good for my faith, which deepened when I went to college at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota,” he said. “I prayed a quiet prayer to God about my vocation. I listened and received the call, but it was hard to do much with it then. I needed God’s help to respond to this, and he spoke to me in silent prayer. He has continued to guide me.”
While attending the University of Mary, Dcn. Gagne was a science major, studying medical chemistry, biology and theology.
“It was then that I was convicted of my call to the priesthood and immersed myself in Catholic culture of daily Mass, and going to pray each day,” he said. He eventually completed a degree in philosophy at Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary in Winona, Minnesota.
When Dcn. Gagne told his family and friends that he planned to study for the priesthood, none were too surprised, as they seemed to have a sense of his calling before he did. His parents, Michael and Christina, and his older sister, Abbey, witnessed his desire to attend the summer discernment camps and spend time at Holy Hill.
“Because of their quiet support, I felt like I was responding to God and not my parents,” he said. “I think giving up marriage and children is a different way, but a priest takes up Christ’s marriage in the Church. It is not a sacrifice where you give up a good thing for a bad thing, but it is a choice between two goods. A priest once told me that when he got ordained, he thought he was giving God a great gift, but God gave him a great gift.”
An avid hockey player, Dcn. Gagne played on his high school team and hopes to join a league in West Bend after he begins his assignment there in June.
“I will be just 15 minutes from my parents, which will be very nice, and I will be able to see them in my spare time,” he said. “I enjoy finding a good novel and a quiet place to read when I can. I also enjoy getting together with the guys and the fraternity at the seminary, which has been one of the greatest joys.”
As he approaches ordination, Dcn. Gagne looks forward to celebrating the sacraments and bringing the Eucharist to the world at Mass.
“I am also looking forward to hearing confessions, as it is such a special time when people bring their pain and things dear to their hearts. I hope I can bring God’s love and be an instrument of healing,” he said. “There is a lot I don’t know, and I will make mistakes due to my inexperience, but I will lean into it the best I can.”
Shaped by Suffering in Light of Faith — Dcn. Aaron Siehr
- Home Parish: Dominic, Brookfield
- Teaching Parish: Mary and St. Anthony, Menomonee Falls
- Parish Assignment: Associate pastor, St. Charles, Hartland
- Favorite Scripture Verse: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” (John 15:16)
COLLEEN JURKIEWICZ
CATHOLIC HERALD STAFF
At some point, each believer has to contend with the same question: Why is there such human suffering in this world, if our God is all-powerful and all-good?
But most don’t have to face it as young as Dcn. Aaron Siehr. He was only 7 years old in 2004 when his father, Phillip, 40, died from injuries sustained in an accident while at work at a printing plant. Phillip Siehr also left behind a widow, Meg, and a daughter, Paige, who was just three years older than her little brother.
The sudden loss was “one of those life-defining moments,” recalled Dcn. Siehr, and in its aftermath, the first grader at St. Dominic School in Brookfield grappled with what it all meant within the context of the Catholic faith of his family.
“As much as a 7-year-old knows how to pray, I was trying to understand why God let something like this happen, and what kind of God he is,” Dcn. Siehr said. “It set me on a trajectory toward trying to understand tragedy within the lens of our faith, trying to understand that unique suffering, and still knowing that there was hope in all of it — the hope that God draws close to those who are suffering.”
Dcn. Siehr will be ordained to the priesthood May 17 with two Saint Francis de Sales Seminary seminarians at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, Milwaukee.
Dcn. Siehr credits the influence of his grandfather Bernard Stich, a devout man and daily communicant, with his decision to become an altar server in middle school. Serving brought him in close proximity, physically and spiritually, to the sacrifice on the altar. It was while serving Holy Thursday Mass at the age of 12 that the thought first occurred to him: “Would I be happy if I were a priest?”
The prospect was daunting, and Dcn. Siehr’s reaction to it was, at first, one of reluctance — a feeling of, “Why do you want me?”
“I don’t know how to pray. I’m not super-pious or devout,” Deacon Siehr recalls thinking. “I like serving at Mass, and I like being a part of what’s going on here. But I’m not holy enough to be a priest. I don’t know enough. I’m just a 12-year-old kid. I just want to live my life.”
Thoughts of the priesthood resurfaced when he was a junior at Catholic Memorial High School and also receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation. His mother advised him to reach out to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee Vocations Office, and he got in touch with then-Vocations Director Fr. Luke Strand and even visited a college seminary. If anything, the visit “woke me up to the reality that if I really wanted to know what God’s will in my life was, I would really have to start taking prayer more seriously,” he said. “I’d have to start really trying to understand who God is and who the Church is.”
After graduating from Catholic Memorial in 2015, Dcn. Siehr studied rehabilitation psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This course of study involved work with people who have disabilities, and it was an experience that taught him a lot about human dignity — “namely, that it is not what people can do, but who they are,” he said.
He was also profoundly impacted by his involvement at the St. Paul’s Catholic Student Center and his membership in Phi Kappa Theta, a Catholic fraternity. Through that increased commitment to prayer and the sacraments, Dcn. Siehr said, “it just became clear that God wanted me to make a more radical gift of myself to him and to his Church.”
He applied to Saint Francis de Sales Seminary during his senior year and began formation there after his graduation in 2019.
“The best way I can describe seminary life is that it’s very real,” said Dcn. Siehr. “We live in a world where there are so many distractions and escapes from reality. The seminary is reality. We wake up, we pray before the God of all creation in the chapel, we celebrate Mass together, we eat together, we pray together, we go to school together, we support one another, we hang out together, we have fun together, we let people into our lives — into our great victories and all of our challenges and failures. It’s a place where you can really be yourself before God, but also before your brothers, who are there to support you.”
As he prepares for priestly ministry, that sense of community support is more significant than ever. His family, which now includes his stepdad, Michael Hart, is as excited for his ordination as he is. As he approaches that momentous day, his thoughts are very much on the many people whose impact has shaped his journey.
“The day is my ordination, but the Church is there, and they’re the ones who also discerned with me that God is calling me to this life,” he said. “There is again this theme of ‘I’m not doing it alone.’ There’s a sense of communion.”
