He didn’t realize it at the time, but when Deacon Sean Mazary, YA, got a job in high school selling cotton candy at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, he was preparing for ministry.
“There weren’t a whole lot of spiritual thoughts from the work itself, but I was seeing thousands of people everyday and that’s where I learned how to communicate, and to be present with people,” said Deacon Mazary, 33, who grew up in Newport News. “It was a required skill, and I learned that I can be some kind of conduit of joy for them.”
His real-world education continued after graduating from Old Dominion University in Norfolk in 2015, when he landed a job as a bartender at the Wegmans grocery store pub in Short Pump, near Richmond. “It was interesting,” he said. “A lot of people come to the bar by themselves and I learned how to be a listening ear for them.”
It was a lonely period after leaving a close-knit Youth Apostles community (a non-profit organization of priests and laymen devoted to discipling young people) in Norfolk. He didn’t know anyone in the area and was working long hours, often nights and weekends.
“But I would go to daily Mass most mornings and I remember I started having a tug on my heart during Mass,” he said. “I felt the Lord was saying that he wanted me to be open (to a vocation), but I was lonely, and I said, ‘No, I don’t want that. I want a wife and children.’ You know, a normal life.”
He leapt at a chance to manage the pizza restaurant at a new Wegmans opening in Chantilly, and the call got louder. “I didn’t want to hear it, but it was there,” said Deacon Mazary, who recalled having a heart-to-heart conversation with a friend. “He challenged me to take it to prayer and to discern if God was calling me to follow him in that way,” he said. “By April, I discerned that God might be calling me to the priesthood.”
The two-year process that led to enrollment at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md., in 2020 was gradual. “Over time, seeing what the priests were doing, the life they were living and how they carried out being Christ’s instrument in the sacraments, was a natural progression,” he said. “Once I took that first step, the Lord just said, ‘Okay, keep going, keep going.’ ”
Six years later, Deacon Mazary, who will serve as parochial vicar of St. Leo the Great Church in Fairfax, will be ordained as a wave of Catholic evangelism is attracting thousands of young adults.
“People are searching for something more and a lot of young people want something different than what the world’s giving them,” he said. “There’s a lot of pluralism in the world that says any belief you have is okay and there’s not a lot that’s concrete. Actually, what we believe matters and what we do with our lives matters and I think young people see that — that we need meaning and purpose.”
Deacon Mazary’s purpose is now clear and so is the meaning of the days he spent selling cotton candy, tending bar and making pizza. “I joke that I was in food service for a while, and now I’ll be in food service again,” he said. “But it will be a different kind of food.”
