Local

A promise kept

Dave Borowski | Catholic Herald

Fr. Stefan Starzynski, who celebrates a monthly healing Mass and service at St. Mary of Sorrows Church in Fairfax, works in his parish office.

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At 7 p.m. on the second Saturday of every month, more than
400 people gather at St. Mary of Sorrows Church in Fairfax
for a healing Mass and service. The celebrant is Father
Stefan Starzynski, parochial vicar of St. Mary of Sorrows.

It’s been a bumpy road for the boy who grew up in Arlington
to the man who’s an instrument of God’s healing.

Father Starzynski was born in Thailand to Paul and Florence
Starzynski. His father was an employee of the U. S.
Information Service. After traveling the world, the family
eventually settled in Arlington.

The Starzynski family was not particularly devout. His mother
attended Sunday Mass and they said grace before meals, but
that was it.

He said for some inexplicable reason he came home from school
one day in the second grade, slammed his fists on the table
and said to his mother, “I don’t care if God wants me to be a
priest, I’m not going.”

It was an unusual statement from a child who didn’t attend
Catholic school until the fourth grade, was not encouraged to
find a vocation and who really didn’t know any priests.

Another seemingly random event happened when Father
Starzynski was a senior at Bishop Ireton High School in
Alexandria and began looking at colleges. His father had
computer software that would help pick a school that matched
criteria entered into the program. Gannon University in Erie,
Pa., popped up first on the list. Gannon is a Catholic school
located within the boundaries of the Erie Diocese.

He told his mother he was going to Gannon. She asked why.

“I don’t know,” he told her, “but that’s where I’m going.”

It was at Gannon where his vocation grew. The religion
courses filled him with a desire to become a priest. He
applied to the seminary his freshman year, but failed the
psychological test because of a lifelong battle with
depression.

When he was a junior he attended a pro-life conference at
Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio. A conference
attendee asked him to pray the rosary with him, but he told
the young man that he hadn’t prayed the rosary since he was
in grade school.

He prayed the rosary, and when he returned to Gannon he
promised God he would pray the rosary every day. From that
moment, his vocation was firm.

“I’ve kept that promise,” he said. “In 21 years, I’ve never
missed a day.”

Many days he says the rosary more than once.

It was Father Bob Levis, spiritual director at Gannon, who
encouraged the young man’s vocation.

Father Starzynski went to Father James R. Gould,
then-diocesan director of vocations, looking for another
chance.

“Father Gould said that he would take anyone that Father
Levis recommends,” he said.

He took the psychological test again and passed.

That summer, after applying to Mount St. Mary Seminary in
Emmitsburg, Md., he went to India to work with Blessed Teresa
of Kolkata and waited for his application to be considered.
Mother Teresa prayed for him, and his vocation, and he
received word that he was accepted.

Father Starzynski was ordained May 18, 1996. At his
ordination reception, a friend asked him if he would leave
the party and anoint the baby of his neighbors who had been
very ill since birth.

He left the celebration, stopping at St. Ann Church in
Arlington to pick up sacred oils.

“I went to the hospital and saw the baby,” said Father
Starzynski.

“Do you believe that the baby will be healed if I anoint
him?” he asked the parents. “Yes, we believe that,” they
answered.

Three days later the family told him their baby was healed.

Father Starzynski began helping Father Horace “Tuck”
Grinnell, then pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Church in Falls
Church, with his healing ministry and eventually he began
celebrating healing Masses at St. Mary of the Immaculate
Conception Church in Fredericksburg, where he was parochial
vicar. He continued the healing Masses at St. Patrick Church
in Fredericksburg and eventually at St. Mary of Sorrows.

He said that of the hundreds who attend each monthly service,
about a third are new. About 20 percent are not Catholic.

Father Starzynski said he believes that God chose him for
this ministry because “I needed more healing than most. God
(wanted) to heal me and in turn help bring the healing of
Jesus to others.”

His work in the healing ministry was not something anyone
expected him to pursue.

Father Lawrence J. Gesy is a priest in Baltimore and a man
who brought the healing ministry to the Arlington Diocese.
When Father Starzynski was at Mount St. Mary Seminary, Father
Gesy would talk to the seminarians about healing. But Father
Starzynski thought that healing was “feel-good fluff.”

Father Gesy appreciated the irony of Father Starzynski’s
work.

“Of all the seminarians that he knew I was the last one he
thought would get involved in the healing ministry,” he said.

Father Starzynski authored a book on miracles: Miracles:
Healing for a Broken World. The proceeds from the book help
fund another of Father Starzynski’s projects, the Paul Stefan
Foundation, which operates three homes for unwed mothers.

God chose Father Starzynski to be a healing minister, but he
believes that we are all called to bring healing to the world
through prayer – something we’re all capable of.

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