Scholarship & Sanctity - St. John's Catholic Newman Center

CathIlliniAUG09R 7/31/09 3:19 PM Page 7
Newman in the World
By Megan Kelly
Answering the Call
While most members of the University
of Illinois’ class of 2009 are
landing their first job or attending
grad school, two young men are pursuing
a different kind of calling.
This fall, Alex Millar and Joe
Baker will enter Mount St. Mary’s
Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md., This is
a particularly important time for religious
vocations, as Pope Benedict XVI
declared a “Year of Priests” beginning
on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart
of Jesus on June 19.
Neither Millar nor Baker has had
a clear cut path to deciding to enter
the priesthood.
Alex Millar was born in Urbana
while his parents were pursuing graduate
degrees but grew up in Midland,
Michigan. His was raised Catholic by a
Catholic mother and Mormon father,
but his catechesis was fairly minimal.
“As a child, I went through all the
basic Catholic rites like First Communion
and Confirmation in Michigan,
but my family didn’t really go to
church that much,” he said.
Millar didn’t really look into his
faith until the end of high school
when he dated a militant atheist who
challenged his beliefs and woke him
out of a spiritual malaise. So when he
entered the University of Illinois he
began searching for the truth.
“I found a Protestant group at
first, but as I got more involved with
them and went to some Protestant services,
something just felt wrong about
6 The Catholic Illini FALL 2009
it all. There was something missing,”
he said.
Millar said he also started attending
St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in
Urbana, where he had been baptized
as a baby.
“I discovered what I was missing
there. It was the Eucharist and a longing
for the Real Presence of the Lord.
And I found it at St. Pat’s and that’s
what really brought me back into the
Church,” he said.
Millar began attending daily Mass
at St. John’s Catholic Newman Center
while still remaining active at St. Pat’s.
As he grew more engaged in the faith
freshman year, he had thoughts about
the priesthood, but quickly buried
these feelings.
“I was one raised expecting a family,
and in the LDS (Latter-Day Saints)
church my dad belongs to, the biggest
thing you can do to serve God is get
married and raise a large family. I didn’t
really think about the priesthood
because of that,” Millar explained.
He began reconsidering his calling
at the end of his sophomore year when
he heard former Newman priest Fr.
Tom Holloway give a sermon on vocations.
He then spent the summer at
the cathedral in Peoria with Fr. Brian
Brownsey, who further interested him
in the priesthood. Afterward, he
engaged in conversations with Newman
religious staff and attended the
Men of God vocations group at
Newman.
“Fr. Brownsey did a great job of
teaching me how to pray. We spent
time talking about discernment,”
Millar said. “Fr. Luke and Msgr.
Ketcham were also very helpful. It
was great getting to talk to them
about spiritual things. I felt very
open. If I ever wanted to go in and
talk, I could.”
Millar admits the hardest part
of this process has been trying to
help those closest to him to understand
his discernment. Despite this
struggle, Millar said he never regrets
his decision to enter the seminary
and looks forward to serving God.
“There’s a genuineness about
Alex that you can’t miss,” said Fr.
Luke Spannagel. “He has a real
desire to serve the Lord. That made
me believe very easily about the genuineness
of his vocation.”
Like Millar, Joe Baker was raised
with the basics of Catholicism. He
grew up in Morton, Illinois. and
attended a Catholic grade school,
but he didn’t explore his faith very
much until the end of high school
when unexpected events occurred
that opened his eyes and sparked an
interest in a return to the faith.
Baker began college in search of
something more with an earnest
desire to make something of himself.
He started attending weekday Mass
once or twice a week and going to
confession more frequently his freshman
year. Still, Baker didn’t know