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Deacon Daniel Rice and discovering the power of prayer

Zoey Maraist | Catholic Herald Staff Writer

Deacon Daniel A. Rice
will be parochial vicar of Holy Family Parish in Dale City. KERRY NEVINS | CATHOLIC HERALD

Deacon-Rice2_Cmr_WEB

At an age when most teens are headed off to college or their first job, Deacon Daniel A. Rice was headed off to seminary. The faith he encountered through his family, his parish and his school helped the teenager discern his vocation.

Deacon Rice was born Feb. 25, 1995, to Leonard and Barbara Rice in Chantilly, the third of their six children. He and his siblings were homeschooled, and they socialized with other neighborhood children and the kids at his parish, St. Timothy Church in Chantilly. Of all the ways his parents formed his faith, bedtime prayer stands out.

“Sometimes it would be an Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, a verse from Scripture, sometimes it would be a religious song. And then we would pray for each family member by name,” he said.

In seventh grade, Deacon Rice began attending Trinity School at Meadow View in Falls Church, a 7-12 grade Christian school. In high school, as he thought about his future, he considered seminary. But he was worried he would make the wrong decision and that his desire to be a priest was coming from him, not from God.

While listening to the Gospel while attending WorkCamp, he felt God speaking to him. “He was saying, ‘All these thoughts, all these desires you’re having for the priesthood, they’re from the heavenly Father.’ That’s when I knew I was going to seminary,” he said.

Deacon Rice graduated from Trinity in 2013, the same year he was accepted as a seminarian. He entered college seminary at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, graduating from there in 2017. The next year he transferred to St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Pa., and did a spiritual year, sometimes called a propaedeutic year.

He calls it the best year of seminary. “It’s a year to step away from the noise, (to) go into the desert. You get to finally pay attention to the good, the bad and the ugly going on in your heart and present it to Christ and find out that he still loves you.”

He then finished his seminary formation at St. Charles Borromeo.

While he’ll miss the fraternity he found there, he’s looking forward to starting his priestly ministry as parochial vicar of Holy Family Parish in Dale City, especially teaching people to pray. “I remember several times just being very desperate to know how to commune with God and not knowing how,” he said. “I think a lot of people want to pray but don’t know the first things about how to pray. There’s just so much I’ve been given that I want to give.”

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