With his ordination to the priesthood just days away on June 6 at the Cathedral of the Holy Angels in Gary, transitional deacon Will O’Donnell summed up his feelings with just one word – excited, stating, “I've been waiting for this my whole life.”
Deacon O’Donnell shared that he felt a confirming grace during his canonical retreat last year for the diaconate as he prayed over the passage of the call of Jeremiah in the Old Testament, where God tells him, “I have set you apart from Earth for this to be a prophet to the nations.”
“I feel like every man who's called to the priesthood can relate to that passage,” he said. “That this is something that you've been discerning and praying with all of these years, and the Lord has continued to confirm this in your life.”
O’Donnell feels he has been blessed with the grace of confidence that God has given him over the past year of his diaconate. Therefore, the anxiety and nervousness he once felt have since turned into excitement and anticipation to enter the priesthood.
O’Donnell acknowledged he can’t think about ordination without becoming emotional. He said every ordination Mass he’s served at over the past eight years, as he’s watched those to be ordained process in, along with the priests, he always tears up. Each year that he was able to witness those moments, he said, was another benchmark of the Lord saying to him, “This is going to be you.”
While O’Donnell has completed the necessary years of study, he is very aware that his ordination to the priesthood will be just the beginning of a new adventure that will last the rest of his life.
One portion of the Mass O’Donnell is most looking forward to is the anointing of the hands. He said the reality is, at that moment, his hands become Christ's hands.
He said, “I have to be very aware that through these hands, through my voice, through my very self, my heart, I'm going to be Christ for others in a particular way, in a special way.”
After his hands are anointed, consecrated with the sacred chrism, they will be dried with a linen cloth, called a maniturgium, which will be given to his mother after celebrating his first Mass. He anticipates it will be a very special moment when he is able to give her that gift.
Dale and Amy O'Donnell, his parents, met in nursing school, married and settled in Crown Point to raise their family. Will O'Donnell is the second of five siblings. He has an older brother, Jake, a younger sister, Grace, and two younger brothers, Joseph and Caleb.
O’Donnell recalled growing up, his family was always going to Mass. In fact, he said, he doesn’t remember a time when they skipped Mass when he was a child.
O’Donnell received a Catholic education, attending St. Mary Catholic Community School in Crown Point for pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, where he received his sacraments. After graduating, he went to Andrean High School in Merrillville.
“The O'Donnell household is a household founded on Jesus Christ,” he said. “We made it known, especially just through the way that we live, that our faith is the core to who we are.”
O'Donnell said the family prayed together every day before meals and recited the Rosary. He remembers praying the Rosary often as a child and learning what each bead represented very early.
One of his favorite things about his childhood home is that there are many images of Christ, his mother Mary and the saints spread throughout every room. He said those images shaped his spirituality and the way he views our faith.
His call to the priesthood began as an altar server at St. Mary in Crown Point. He shared that as a child, he was a student who was always engaged in the faith. He loved theology and learning about Jesus and the gospels and scripture.
O'Donnell’s First Communion served as a catalyst for his love of the faith, which he followed by assisting as an altar server. He recalled being excited as he received instructions on the duties of an altar server and then being able to serve. For several years, he would wake up very early to serve at the 6:30 a.m. Mass before starting the school day.
The first strong instance that O'Donnell felt called to discern God's will came in high school. During that time, like most high school students, he started to think about the answer to the question, “What am I going to do with my life?” He started to contemplate the many plans and dreams he had considered. He thought he might like to work for the diocese or be involved in the communications and technology field to help in evangelization.
One night, O'Donnell had an in depth conversation with Father Jeff Burton. During their talk, the then-deacon corrected a lot of misconceptions O’Donnell had about the seminary. That conversation, along with the support of his parents, helped him to realize that he was perhaps being called to discern what God wanted for his life through attending the seminary.
During the coronavirus pandemic, O’Donnell and other seminarians were sent home. He was sent to work in Michigan City for his summer assignment. It was during those five months of intense prayer, watching the pastor there, and having some intimate conversations with him, that he began to hear the Lord's voice.
“I felt Him asking me to take on my priestly heart,” he said. “What I noticed is that a lot of the thoughts and the desires that Father (David) Kime was having were a lot of my own desires. I wanted to bring the Eucharist to the people. I wanted them to come back to Mass. I wanted them to experience the Lord's Mercy again in confession.”
O’Donnell attended Immaculate Heart of Mary in Winona, Minn., which is on the campus of Saint Mary's University. O’Donnell explained that different seminaries focus on different aspects of formation for the priesthood. The Program of Priestly Formation, taken from a document headed by Pope John Paul II, mentions four dimensions of formation: human, intellectual, pastoral and spiritual. IHM Seminary focused on two in particular – human and spiritual.
“Most men that I know of and that I've experienced in seminary have described it like the first four years of your seminary career are teaching you how to be a good man, a good disciple of Jesus before you can learn how to be a good priest,” he said.
O’Donnell said his education during his seminary years emphasized that the core of a vocation is recognizing the Lord's voice in prayer. This involves knowing how to discern His voice from the voice of the enemy, and how the devil can try to discourage us, tempt us and lead us away from what is truly going to fulfill us.
In addition to spiritual formation, the human formation provided the necessary tools, values and attitudes towards how to be a good man, learning how to lay down your life for others and how to love others.
O’Donnell said his parents were also a good example of how to love. He said their faithful, fruitful marriage, their love for each other, and the gift of children has helped Him to become a better man, and prepared him to discern the priesthood.
O'Donnell also remained close to his grandmother Geraldine, who he described as a source of joy and happiness and an influential figure in his vocation. She lived with the family as she battled cancer during the last years of her life, teaching O’Donnell about how to approach suffering.
“It was a very moving experience to take care of her and to see her also take care of us through what she went through. We were able to be there with her and provide the sacraments to her.”
O’Donnell agrees with the many documents from popes and saints over the years that explain that holy families make holy priests, and that the family is actually the first Church.
The family was always very welcoming to priests in their home. They invited a number of priests from the diocese over for dinners. One of those was the pastor of their parish, Father Ted Mauch. O'Donnell noted Father Mauch became a mentor to him over the years.
He also appreciates the friendship and support of Father Steven Caraher. He said he has seen Father Caraher's fatherhood to him and to the people in his parish really come alive in recent months.
“There have been many, many other priests of the diocese that I can truly call a brother and a father,” he said. “They have all been very influential in many different ways, especially those priests that I've been assigned to (assist) over the summers.”
The Diocese of Gary is O’Donnell’s home. It's always been where he has lived and where he returned after college. He loves that the diocese is small geographically when compared to other dioceses outside the state. He feels that it is a good thing because it allows the presbyterate and seminarians to spend more time together and get to know each other better.
It was a strong desire to share God’s love with others that made O'Donnell want to be a diocesan priest. He explained that as a diocesan priest, he will be coming into contact with people daily, whether it's in daily Mass, confessions, an encounter while going from the rectory to the parish, or simply while out buying groceries.
In his experience wearing clerics to different places in public or just doing campus administration, he has seen people approach a member of the clergy because they want to receive a blessing or need to talk. When he was in Detroit, that was something that attracted him to the diocesan priesthood – to be seen and to be known as a public person in the community.
“All of those things that I might have felt inadequate for or didn't really feel like I had the strength to do were opportunities for the Lord,” he said. “He was inviting me to let Him into those areas and to rely on His grace to provide for me in those places where I felt weak.”
O'Donnell said he wants people to approach him and see Christ through him, in the way that he lives, the way that he preaches, teaches and ministers the sacraments. Those are the things he hopes people will notice and see him as someone that they can trust and someone who is a “true instrument of Christ's mercy, of His grace, of His love. I think that’s the hope of every priest, of every man discerning the priesthood.”
O'Donnell said that, despite their own weakness, Jesus continues to call men to
“step out of the boat, step onto the water and come to me.” Those words he said are a reminder for the faithful to trust in Him even though they might fall.
“We're going to fail in this life. It's inevitable,” he said. “But we can trust in Our Heavenly Father that he's going to lead us to everlasting life. He's going to lead us to the place, to the vocation that's going to bring us the most fulfillment, the greatest happiness and the greatest blessing.”
He added, “And I'm living proof of that. I've failed many times in the seminary, and fallen short, but Christ is always there to bring me out of the water to keep me from drowning.”
