Deacon Andrew T. Lewandowski, 56, said his decades-long journey to the priesthood is “not the norm.”
“I don’t think God calls most people to the priesthood at a late age, which is probably a good thing, but at the same time … God’s constantly surprising us,” he said.
Deacon Lewandowski grew up the third of six kids in a tight-knit, blue-collar Catholic Polish community in Mount Pleasant, Pa. His family frequently attended liturgies at St. Joseph Church in Everson, Pa., which was built by his great-grandfather. “We were at church a lot, but I always enjoyed it,” he said.
As an eighth grader and altar server, he first felt an “inkling” of a call to the priesthood. During Eucharistic adoration, “I started to ask myself, was I called to the priesthood?” he remembered. “I was attracted to liturgy, so it was a natural question for me to ask.”
But he wouldn’t feel a strong call until much later. After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 1991, he took up a job in a data center. Seven years later, he started his own business, PROAPTIV Corporation, based in Leesburg. During this time, “my faith, I would say, was very compartmentalized. I had my faith life, and then there was everything else: my personal life, my business. And I got very wrapped up in my business.”
In his late 30s, Deacon Lewandowski realized something had to change. After several failed relationships, he realized, “I wasn’t living this integrated faith life, and my work was consuming me. And then I ran across this incredible priest in the confessional.” That one confession had a profound impact: “Before I knew it, my faith was just awoken in a transformational way, like my entire life changed.
“I began to spend much more time in prayer, at Eucharistic adoration, daily Mass, and then I started to get involved in the parish community” of St. Francis de Sales Church in Purcellville, he said. He had an epiphany during this transformational season: “I discovered that … I had never been happier in my life. I never felt more free, I never felt younger.”
Deacon Lewandowski said in his mid-40s, he had thoughts again about the priesthood. “I thought it was crazy and I would just put it out of my mind. But it never went away,” he said. “Every time I would think about the priesthood, I would get butterflies in my stomach.”
A year later in 2017, he brought it to his spiritual advisor who told him that “despite my age, we cannot ignore the promptings of the Holy Spirit.” He applied to seminary but was not initially accepted. So, he took a year to further discern and consecrated himself to Mary at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Poland. Then, “everything unfolded.”
He attended a vocation retreat with the Congregation of Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary in Steubenville, Ohio, and decided to discern with the order for a year.
During that time, he said, “I always had this feeling like I was meant to be a diocesan priest.” He left the Marians, convinced of the call to serve as a priest for the Arlington diocese. On the way back to Virginia, he stopped by the National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes near Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md. Not long after, his application to the diocese was accepted, and he returned to the Mount as a seminarian.
During their preparation for the priesthood, seminarians are challenged to study “identities of the priesthood” that they can relate to, “and the one that’s been strongest for me has been the spiritual healer, the physician. So, I can’t wait to listen to confessions.” After all, his journey to the priesthood was inspired from that one confession two decades ago: “It was not only a jump start. He saved my life.”
After ordination, Deacon Lewandowski will be parochial vicar of St. John the Evangelist Church in Warrenton.
