HOBART – The Serra Club of Northwest Indiana may have to add extra seating for its annual Seminarian Christmas Party next year thanks to an exciting announcement made by diocesan vocations director Father Nathaniel Edquist at this year’s Dec. 26 party held at St. Bridget.
“Part of my job is to walk with young men considering a vocation (to the priesthood), and some are right on the edge of making a decision, but as of now we have six young men involved in the application process, filling out applications for Bishop Robert J. McClory to consider,” Father Edquist told the crowd. “Please keep them in your prayers.”
In recent years, the diocese has usually welcomed 1-2 new seminarians a year, some straight out of high school, others with some college experience, and still others, like this year’s new seminarian, Nathan Knowlton, after several years of work experience.
Father Edquist is continuing to journey with discerners as he plans a January trip with several men 21 and older to visit Deacon Will O’Donnell at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Mich., where he is completing his final year of formation in preparation for ordination to the priesthood in June. He added that he will lead a group of discerners 16-to-20 years of age on an upcoming visit to Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary in Minnesota, where several Diocese of Gary seminarians are studying.
Deacon O’Donnell said his more rewarding experience this past year was the opportunity to hone his “teaching and preaching skills” during a summer assignment at St. James the Less in Highland, where he was tasked with preaching half of the weekday and Sunday Mass homilies, and while serving at St. Mary parish in Royal Oak, Mich. during the school year.
“I preach at Sunday Mass once a month, teach the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults at St. Mary,” he said.
O’Donnell said he also gained teaching experience by presenting a Master’s of Divinity seminar for the parish and for all Sacred Heart Seminary deacons. His topic was “What Are the Church’s Two Main Traditions of Prayer?”
Nicholas Emsing, a third-year Theology student at St. Francis de Sales Seminary in Milwaukee, Wisc., headed to a week-long retreat in Oklahoma days after the dinner. He found his most rewarding experience in 2025 his summer assignment in the Clinical Pastoral Education program at Ascension St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis, where he ministered to patients and staff “in a variety of situations” at a Level I Trauma Center.
“I left feeling very affirmed in my vocation, called to be a priest because God wants me to be one, and knowing I will hear what God wants for me,” Emsing said.
Collin Van Waardenburg, a third-year Theology student at St. Francis de Sales Seminary, said he has been richly rewarded by serving the small, rural parishes in Wisconsin, Holy Trinity and St. Michael in Kewaskum, for the past two years.
“The people have gotten to know me, and I have gotten to know them; they’ve invited me to First Communion parties, to go snowboarding with the kids, and I even bagged my first deer on a hunting trip,” he said. “It gives me more energy to be with them, and the way they treat me is the way I want to treat my parish when I return to our diocese.”
Leo Marcotte, a fourth-year Philosophy student at Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary in Winona, Minn., found his most rewarding 2025 experience “an increase in my trust in the Lord.’
“So many things popped up in school, my family, my prayer life, and I had to take care of it all,” he explained. “I put it all on God, accepted that I am not self-sufficient and that I must trust in God, and it strengthened my vocation exponentially.”
Patrick Cullars, a third-year Philosophy student at IMH, considers “one of the most instructive things for me this past year was our formation class, ‘Rules of Discernment,’ that was very helpful to me. One of the key things I learned was about the dynamism of spirit, strengthening your thoughts about God’s love for you.” It’s not an academic course, added Cullars, but along with formation classes on prayer and celibacy, focuses on discernment.
Roy Graf, a second-year Philosophy student at IMH, said working with his spiritual director, Father Matt Fasnnaught, was his most rewarding experience during the past year. “We meet every other week, and I talk to him about anything that comes up in my prayers, with my discernment, and any issues good or bad,” Graf said. “He is great at listening and guiding me to the Holy Spirit.”
The Diocese of Gary’s newest seminarian, Nathan Knowlton, is a first-year Philosophy student from Rolling Prairie attending IHM. After graduating from high school, Knowlton said he discerned with a religious order for a year before working for four years as a carpenter. In his first year of seminary in Minnesota, he has been rewarded, he said, “with a consistency in my spiritual life. Getting up, and following a schedule day in and day out, takes a personal initiative, and I find I’m doing it not because I have to, but because I want to. That has been rewarding.”
Present in spirit, and in the form of life-sized cutouts that were placed at separate dinner tables, were seminarians Gianni DiTola and Ryan Pierce, who are studying at North American College in Rome, Italy.
Serra Club president John Vidal presented gifts to the seminarians and thanked all the Serrans for their help with the party before naming teams of seminarians who played bags, tabletop croquet and indoor golf.
Father Dominic Bertino, senior priest and Serra Club chaplain, offered the closing prayer, asking God “for your continued blessings on these young men studying for the priesthood, as they spread the God news in your name. May they grow closer to you in the faith.”
Caption: The Serra Club made sure that the two Diocese of Gary seminarians studying in Rome had a presence at its annual Seminarian Christmas Party on Dec. 26 at St. Bridget in Hobart. Before they took their places at their dinner tables, cutouts of Gianni DiTola and Ryan Pierce were “greeted” by Father Ivan Alatorre (left) and Deacon Will O’Donnell. (Marlene A. Zloza photo)
