Despite torrential rain, 210 young men attended the Saint Joseph’s Day for Vocations at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, on Saturday, March 23, 2024. 

The event was organized to give boys ages 12 to 17 the opportunity to attended workshops and take part in activities to explore what it is like to be a seminarian.

Father George Sears, director of vocations for the Archdiocese of New York, led the morning prayer and welcomed the boys, along with their parents and chaperones.

“I am hopeful,” Father Sears said in an interview with The Good Newsroom. “The men who are discerning, they are coming from a place of real faith, and a desire to evangelize, a desire to be faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Father Sears, who also serves as pastor of Holy Name of Jesus and St. Gregory the Great parishes in Manhattan, said that men who feel the calling a bit later in life should explore it and not fear they waited to long. “Whatever you give to God, in the moment that you give it, He will make something wonderful out of it,” he said. 

While the boys were attending their workshops, a presentation held in the Deacons Chapel by Andrew and Shannon Gauzza, parents of Giovanni Gauzza, a student at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, who is in his first year of formation for the priesthood, gave parents of potential seminarians insight into what their and their son’s future might be.

Support for Giovanni’s decision to begin his journey toward the priesthood was met with mixed reactions from family members and parishioners at their home parish of St. Martin de Porres in Poughkeepsie. “He’s too handsome” was one objection raised. His mother expressed no such reservations. “I absolutely love it,” Shannon said. “It is a great experience. It truly is a gift to have a child who is a seminarian.”

The process of becoming a priest is a long one. Some boys who feel their calling early may enter what is called minor seminary, a preparatory high school. That is followed by four years of college, during which they will live with other young men in formation. After that comes a spiritual year, and then four years of full seminary study.

“You’re not giving up your son; you are gaining all these other children,” Shannon said of the experience of interacting with the others in formation at the College Seminary of the Immaculate Conception at St. Andrew’s Hall, where Giovanni lives.

At noon, the attendees re-assembled in the main chapel for Mass celebrated by Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

Confessions and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament were available during the program.