The loneliness that stirred Deacon Joseph Connor to pick up a book on New Year’s Eve 2013 was about to transform everything he knew about prayer. The sophomore engineering student at Virginia Tech didn’t have a party to go to, so he searched for something to read at his parents’ home in Alexandria.
“The book I found was the ‘Secret of the Rosary’ by St. Louis de Montfort,” said Deacon Connor. “It was a shocking little book on the miracles that were reported through people in their devotion to the rosary. I read it in a day and from that day on I’ve prayed the rosary every single day.”
From his earliest childhood memories, Deacon Connor wanted to be a priest, but admits he struggled in his prayer life. The book “was a practical tool of, ‘Do this and you’ll see results,’ which really appealed to my engineering brain. I describe it as kind of a gateway to prayer in general and it opened up a whole floodgate of graces in my life and connected me to a lot of other things.”
Along with playing the piano and traveling, Deacon Connor, whose home parish is St. Rita in Alexandria, lists evangelization as a hobby. “As Christians, we’re called to evangelize, which means to spread the faith and not just contain it to ourselves,’ he said.
“It goes against the unspoken cultural rules that we don’t talk about politics or religion with people, don’t upset anybody, don’t make people feel uncomfortable in any way. It’s challenging to spread the faith, but ultimately, people’s souls depend upon our efforts, and we have the graces we need from the sacraments to do so,” he said.
Deacon Connor, 31, who attended Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md., is quick to point out that Catholics will be lousy evangelists without radiating the joy of Christ.
“It’s like we’re a fountain and you can’t pour out until you’ve filled up,” he said. “In a fountain, the water fills and then it brims over. It’s the same thing with us. Many people just need to work on themselves growing in the faith. And then that evangelization will be a little more natural, and they’ll want to evangelize at that point.”
Now on the verge of fulfilling his childhood desire to be a priest, Deacon Connor, who was ordained as a deacon April 6, 2024, said he is simply overwhelmed. His first assignment as a priest will be as parochial vicar at St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Church in Fredericksburg. “It’s kind of like when you finish a marathon and your body is still wanting to run, or it doesn’t fully realize it’s stopped running the race. It’s just a flood of different emotions all sitting and coalescing,” he said. “I realize that I’m about to approach something so grand and incredible.”
