Seminarian’s vocation inspired by Franciscan killed on 9/11
By MICHAEL WOJCIK
News Editor
SPARTA – A tall man, sharply dressed in a fireman’s dress uniform with neatly combed hair, rushes into Mount Manresa Jesuit Retreat House on Staten Island, N.Y. Flustered, this older gentleman approaches Anthony Vento, a member of the retreat house’s kitchen staff, talking about running late for a retreat for New York City firefighters that he was set to lead that day. It turns out the man showed up early for the retreat – several weeks early, in fact – so Vento fixed him some dinner.
“This guy didn’t touch his food until he asked me questions about my life. For him, there was something more important than eating,” said the 27-year-old Vento, today a seminarian for the Paterson Diocese, who has been serving a pastoral assignment this summer at Our Lady of the Lake (OLL) Parish here. “That man was Franciscan Father Mychal Judge [then chaplain of New York’s Fire Department].”
The New York City-born-and-bred Vento did not realize it back then when he was 15 but his chance meeting with Father Judge – who also had served in the Paterson Diocese as pastor of St. Joseph Parish, West Milford (1979-85) – would help gently nudge him in the direction of the priesthood. Over the years, Vento would converse with Father Judge, until his death at the World Trade Center during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists’ attacks.
“I saw Father Mychal a few months prior to the terrorist attacks. He told me that the members of the New York City Fire Department were the greatest people on the face of the earth. On that fateful morning in September he showed he meant what he said by giving his life while ministering to those whom he loved and thought so highly of,” said Vento, a second-year theology student at Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University, South Orange. “In Father Mychal, I saw Christ shining through. After years of discernment, I realized that the fruit of this grace of God – knowing him – has been the desire I have to give my life and service to others as a Roman Catholic priest,” he said.
Growing up on the streets of the Big Apple, Vento certainly did not feel called to priesthood. This quick-witted “city kid”‘ had little time to make lasting personal connections. He calls himself “almost a true New Yorker,” having lived in every borough except Manhattan. Yet Vento did make personal connections with Jesus, and also with some of the priests who served some of the parishes where he worshipped. He spoke fondly of Regina Pacis Parish, Brooklyn – a “mini Vatican with marble floor to ceiling, where people really cared about the faith community.”
At 17, Vento was forced to grow up quickly. After he was graduated from Msgr. Farrell High School in Staten Island, financial circumstances forced him to start renting an apartment on his own and support himself with various odd jobs. He worked at a women’s shelter, taught graduate equivalency degree classes and worked for the New York City Parks Department and as day laborer.
Yet the priestly vocation of the wise-beyond-his-years seminarian started to mature at 18, when he started to serve at Masses – several years later than most young men and women start in that ministry. He remembers, “getting to know priests – about their lives and what they are all about – and getting closer to God and spirituality.” He also started serving the Church as a lector and a youth minister.
Soon after, a 19-year-old Vento would receive God’s strongest call to vocations, not from the altar but in the narthex of the church.
During that time, he started having doubts about his faith, believing that because he lived on his own, he no longer needed God. So Vento went to Mass at Queen of Martyrs Church in Queens, N.Y., to “say goodbye to God.” He did not “feel right” walking into the main worship space of the church, so he stood in the narthex, looking in at the Mass through a window.
“During the Consecration, I felt the profound presence of God,” Vento said. “I felt Him say to me, ‘I want you to lead the Eucharist. I want you to lead My people.’ God called me to the greatest vocation in the world. I felt lifted up.”
So Vento discerned his calling further by attending a retreat with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and by speaking to local vocations directors. He decided to pursue the priesthood with the New York Archdiocese. He attended St. Joseph Seminary, Dunwoodie, N.Y., for more than three years. Through a special program, he earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from St. John’s University, N.Y., in 2007.
Vento’s vocation never took a holiday during summers and vacations, when he would work at the Missionaries of Charity’s 30-bed men’s homeless shelter in the Bronx, N.Y. He slept there overnight, cooked, cleaned and kept the residents – many of them addicts and recently released inmates from Riker’s Island – from fighting.
“They were rough guys, but I learned to love and to see God in people whom society has abandoned,” said Vento, who anticipates he will be called to ordination to priesthood in the Paterson Diocese in 2014. “I also learned to hope against hope. Some of these guys – people you thought would never get better – would come back for a visit as changed men.”
Then Vento took medical leave for more than a year and continued to discern. He moved with his father, Michael, to the Garden State, where he met two priests, who would become his spiritual directors – Father Eugene Romano, Desert Father of the Hermits of Bethlehem in Chester, and Bene_dictine Father Louis Marie Navaratne of Holy Face Monastery, Clifton.
Encouraged by Father Romano and Father Navaratne, Vento moved his vocation across the Hudson River to start studying with the Paterson Diocese last fall. This summer, he serves OLL as a lector and extraordinary minister of Holy Communion. He assists with Vacation Bible School, Masses, weddings, funerals and special prayer events, such as novenas. He also makes Communion calls to local sick and homebound.
“Anthony is very prayerful. He’s an early bird. I sometimes see him praying in the church early in the morning,” said Father David McDonnell, OLL pastor. “Anthony will make a wonderful priest, because he is very helpful and works well with people. He is very giving and attentive to people’s needs, especially to those of the sick.”