News
Transitional Deacon Profiles
April 18, 2019
DEACON TAYLOR LEFFLER
Background: Home parish, St. Mary, West Point. Parents, Dana and Diane Leffler. Sister, Brittany, Lancaster, Pa. Brothers, Brady, Los Angeles, Spencer, Omaha.
Education: Guardian Angels Central Catholic High School, West Point; University of Nebraska at Omaha; St. John Vianney College Seminary at University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn.; Pontifical Angelicum University, Rome; spiritual year in St. Paul with Companions of Christ; Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, St. Louis.
Activities/Ministries: Student leadership for Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS); serving the poor with the Missionaries of Charity; St. Joseph orphanage in Minneapolis; also speaking at Theology on Tap, coordinating Nazareth Night (monthly night of prayer for young adults), leading praise and worship, teaching Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults at multiple parishes, all St. Louis.
Summer assignments: St. Francis Parish, Humphrey; worked and lived with Father Paul Hoesing and seminarians at a formation house in Omaha; worked in Wisconsin offering Catholic outdoor expeditions for high school students and young adults; Institute for Priestly Formation; Spanish immersion in Antigua, Guatemala; last summer as a transitional deacon, St. Bernadette Parish, Bellevue.
Reflections on ordination: “I marvel at all that God has done in my heart in these past eight years of priestly formation. I’m honored to be entering into this sacramental brotherhood of priests, and I’m eager to experience what it means to be a spiritual father to my parishioners.”
DEACON PATRICK MOSER
Background: Home parish, St. Theresa of Avila, Clearwater. Parents, Edward and Sandy Moser, Clearwater. Brothers, Mark, O’Neill, and Scott, Clearwater. Sisters and brothers-in-law, Jennifer, Omaha; Jill, Sioux City, Iowa; Amy and Dale Lassek, Krakow; Rachel and Scott Becker, Elgin.
Education: Pope John XXIII Central Catholic High School, Elgin; University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, St. Louis.
Activities/Ministries: Soup kitchens, pro-life organization at the seminary, pastoral duties in assigned parishes while in seminary in St. Louis.
Summer assignments: St. Bernard Parish, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish, Institute for Priestly Formation, all Omaha; Spanish immersion in Antigua, Guatemala; last summer as a transitional deacon, Sacred Heart Parish, Norfolk.
Reflections on ordination: “In the past year, I have been blessed to share some of the ups and downs of people’s lives as a deacon through my parish assignments. I have learned to appreciate these experiences as opportunities to see the Lord working in the lives of the people I meet through me, and in my life through them. I look forward to bringing that experience with me as I begin my service as a priest of Jesus Christ in the Archdiocese of Omaha.”
DEACON PADRAIC STACK
Background: Home parish, St. James, Omaha. Parents, James and Elizabeth Stack, Manhattan, Kan. Brother and sister-in-law, Seamus Stack and Brittany Hackett, Arlington, Va. Sister and brother-in-law, Ellen and Brandon Scott, Kansas City, Kan.
Education: Hastings High School, Hastings, Neb.; University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, St. Louis.
Activities/Ministries: Life Teen youth group, Communion to the homebound, Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, second-grade religious education, student body president, member of programs and policies committee, Kenrick-Glennon, parish assignments in St. Louis.
Summer assignments: St. Patrick Parish, Fremont; Institute for Priestly Formation, Omaha; Spanish immersion, Antigua, Guatemala; spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola (30-day silent retreat); St. Vincent de Paul Parish, Omaha.
Reflections on ordination: “I approach my ordination to the priesthood with joy, excitement, and yet humbled as I consider how God has chosen to present me with so noble a gift. I recognize that this gift is not something for me to possess but is given only so that I can in turn give it away, along with myself. It is a gift by which I am invited deeper into Christ’s self-gift, his sacrificial love expressed most fully on the cross. It is a unique privilege of the priest to be so united to our High Priest as to act in his Person while representing that greatest act of sacrificial love. I ask only for the grace to imitate more fully each day my Lord Jesus Christ in whose one priesthood I am now blessed to share.”
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