tony killian

Seminarian Ready to Embrace Year of Diaconate Service

By Gretchen R. Crowe
HERALD Staff Writer
(From the Issue of 6/7/07) tony killian

Tony Killian’s smile is broad and genuine, his words carefully chosen, one placed after the other as precisely as dominoes on a hardwood floor. The 44-year-old Pennsylvania native earned his degree in politics in 1985 and spent the next 15 years working as an analyst for the government, always expecting to “meet a nice lady and settle down.” When repeatedly encouraged to consider the priesthood, he said, “thank you,” and moved on. Marriage and children were on his wish list, not the seminary and a white collar.
“I wanted what I wanted,” Killian, now a seasoned seminarian, said in an interview last week. “I fought it for a long time. But God is very patient with me.”
For the last five years, Killian has studied theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md. If all goes well, he will be ordained a deacon on June 9, the only man to be ordained in the Arlington Diocese this year.
With an air of refreshing frankness, Killian relayed the series of “remarkable experiences” that led him from resisting the priesthood to applying to Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde for entrance into the seminary. As the godfather of five, Killian started reflecting on his life and where he was going; he joined St. Lawrence Parish in Springfield and was affected by the community’s spirituality; a priest that he didn’t know told him that he would be ordained; and, after two men from St. Lawrence entered the seminary, including Father Ramon A. Baez (ordained in 2005), Killian said he felt a “twinge” that he attributed to God.
“For the first time in my life something inside me really came to me saying ‘Are you missing out?’” Killian said. “Through a process of many things, this idea of priesthood became stronger and stronger.”
Born at Norton Air Force Base Hospital in San Bernardino, Calif., Killian spent his early years in Philadelphia serving at the altar and singing in the choir at St. Matthew Parish.
He attended Allentown College of St. Francis de Sales (now De Sales University) in Center Valley, Pa., about 50 miles north of the City of Brotherly Love. During this formative time, the idea of priesthood was “far from my mind,” he said.
While working, Killian earned a master’s degree in government, with an emphasis in foreign affairs, in the hopes of climbing the government ladder — which he did, for a time, before trading in his rung for a black long-sleeved shirt.
In 2002, Killian entered Mount St. Mary’s. While enrolled, he was assigned to Gift of Peace in Washington, a residence and nursing facility for the homeless operated by the Missionaries of Charity. He also taught religion and religious education at local schools — something the man with no teaching experience said he was a bit nervous about at first.
During summers, Killian ministered at Christ House in Alexandria, St. Mary Parish in Fredericksburg, Mexico and Our Lady of Angels Parish in Woodbridge, where he first distributed Communion to hospital patients and “experienced the joy of ministry.
“Bringing Christ in the sacraments to others is a beautiful, beautiful thing,” he said.
Most recently, Killian fulfilled his pastoral assignment by working with the elderly poor at the Jeanne Jugan Residence run by the Little Sisters of the Poor in Washington.
As a deacon, Killian said he expects to serve, and that he hopes he will never forget the experiences of the coming year.
“I think it’s not for nothing that the Church in its wisdom designed this step of diaconate in the Latin rite before a man is ordained priest,” he said. “Christ as servant is an aspect of ministry. You don’t lose that as a priest, but it’s important to be sacramentally ordained as a servant.”
As a member of the diaconate, Killian will be able to baptize, preach, and officiate at weddings and funerals.
For practice, he “baptized” a baby doll and presided at a faux wedding and funeral.
“These practicums we get at the seminary are invaluable because otherwise we’d be a wreck,” he said.
Baptism, in particular, is something to which Killian said he was looking forward.
“A minute before baptism, because of original sin, you are not a child of God,” he said. “Then after baptism, a person is completely different as a child of God. That’s really awesome. That’s where I personally think my joy is going to be found.”
Since entering the seminary, Killian said he has finally stopped fighting God. He once heard a vocation talk that said a person could be happy in many ways, but someone will never be as happy as he or she could be unless he or she is doing God’s will.
“I am willing to trust that my happiness lies in this,” he said.
Killian said he best communicates with God before the Blessed Sacrament or through the Liturgy of the Hours. He methodically pairs the Liturgy of the Hours’ New Testament reading with an Old Testament reading — right now the Book of Sirach.
“Reading the Wisdom literature is a great help to formation,” he said. “There’s a lot of wise things that, for example, the Book of Sirach tells us to do, to be thoughtful of, to be careful about.”
Killian cited his formation adviser, his spiritual director and fellow priests, such as Father Baez, as examples of the kind of priest that he wants to be.
“Priests have to be good preachers, they have to be holy, they have to be humble and they have to be strong,” he said. “I look to all those men for examples of ministry. It takes real men to be priests. Priesthood is not for the faint of heart.”
Killian said that being a seminarian forces him to let go of his anxiety about what the future holds and helps him ultimately to accept God’s will for him.
“God’s persistent and he’s patient, but he doesn’t make the decision for you — to accept,” he said. “That’s what it really comes down to: accepting what God wants.”
Killian’s ordination will be June 9 at the Cathedral of St. Thomas More in Arlington at 11 a.m.

Gretchen R. Crowe can be reached at gcrowe@catholicherald.com.