We are the Vocation Team of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, and we seek to help others discover their Call and vocation from God. We assist others in answering the question that accompanies their faith journey: ‘Do I have a Calling?’ and if so, ‘What is it?’ We encourage women and men in the Roman Catholic Church who through prayer and direction wonder if God is calling them to be a priest, to inquire into the life of Sisters who live in Religious Communities and share a community’s spirituality, or to know if the brotherhood in a monastery will be one’s home. Sometimes the simple question ‘What is a priest?’ or ‘What is a Sister?’ begins the internal process of questioning more and this leads to a further invitation to ‘Come and See.’
MEET THE TEAM
Very Rev. Brian Kelly's Bio
In addition to being the Vicar for Vocations, I am pastor of St. Ambrose Church and co-pastor of Holy Trinity and St. Michael’s, both in Cohoes.
I am from Latham. I grew up right around Siena College. Originally (my family were parishioners) at OLA (Our Lady of the Assumption) in Latham and then I worked for Holy Trinity in Cohoes since I was 14. My parents, Tom and Kathy, my brother and sister-in-law, Sean and Krista, all have roots in the Capital Region. Father (Arthur) Becker was my godfather and he was in seminary with my father, who was actually ordained a transitional deacon before he met my mother.
My story isn’t the straight line to the priesthood. I worked for the church and I wanted nothing to do with going to church. I worked for Holy Trinity for about 10 years and I started having this thought and feeling in my heart that I couldn’t shake. There was a secretary there, Joanne, who would say, “You should be a priest someday.” It was kind of a joke for us more than anything. But I started to really get this feeling, this sense that kept coming up, and I am like I don’t even go to church, what are you talking about God? It was not an overnight decision to finally speak up and ask for guidance.
I grew up with a lot of the priests in the area. Like I said, my father was in seminary, so he knew a lot of them. We were pretty close as a family with Father George Fleming, Father John Tallman and many of the others that were the giants in the immediate area. Growing up and having a close relationship with them I got to see firsthand a priest becoming “part of a family,” what priests actually do and what their life was really like. For me, you could say my life was unintentionally perpetually shadowing priests.
When I first started talking about this call to those priests in particular, their initial response was, “No. 1, you don’t even go to church” but what quickly followed was, “I could easily see you as a priest.” It was interesting that their response was incredibly supportive and positive.
The call for me, the sensation in my heart that I couldn’t shake, was incredibly private and personal when it first began. However, once it was out I couldn’t help but see the support around me in the parish, with Father (James) Walsh, our vocation director, and especially amongst my family and friends. That moment changed my life for the better and set me on this path in which I’ve never looked back.
Rev. Daniel Quinn's Bio
I am pastor at All Saints Church, All Saints Academy, Blessed Sacrament Church, Blessed Sacrament School, The Shrine Church Nuestra Señora de las Americas, Mater Christi Parish, Mater Christi School, as well as assistant director of vocations.
I was raised in a Catholic family, grew up in Johnstown in Fulton County. Attending Mass as a family was important enough that we arranged for it. My mom sang in the choir, my brothers and I became altar servers. I joined the choir when I was in sixth grade. We didn’t have any Catholic schools out there, so all of our catechesis was in the home and at the parish’s faith formation program.
I suppose I first thought of becoming a priest when I was really little (and I see this right now in one of my kids at one of my parishes who just wants to do my job), I thought about doing what a priest does, specifically what I saw him doing on Sunday. But that was like first, second or third grade, little-kid stuff. I did consider it seriously, certainly into high school, and I got a letter from Father (Jim) Walsh, the vocations director, because somebody at the parish had given him my name, so then I really started seriously considering it.
Father Barker was the pastor when I was a kid (at St. Patrick’s Church in Johnstown) and had a great influence on me, and then Father Jim Fitzmaurice became the pastor when Father Barker retired. There was also something about being part of the choir; a bunch of adults in the church choir who enjoyed making good music not for any sort of concert performance, but for God. Being at choir practice with them all, enjoying each other’s company and singing really good religious music, that was influential because the words start to sink in, the beauty of it starts to sink in, even if it is just at practice once a week and Sunday Mass. I joined as a sixth grader and that was a very formational time. It was also reinforced at school because our choir director always included sacred music in our programming, because it’s just good music.
I continued with the thoughts (of priesthood) into college (at SUNY Fredonia). When I went to college, I started going to weekday Mass, maybe once a week or twice a month. The Newman Center was very helpful because I met people there and the Newman Center would do things like a little Bible study or have a speaker and you start to think about the things that the Church thinks about, in a deeper, more intellectual way. That was helpful, because I hadn’t done the intellectual stuff then.
When I applied I said to myself, “If I am not supposed to be here, I will either want to leave or they will kick me out.” I figured it was too important for God to let somebody through who wasn’t supposed to be there. I learned now that that happens anyway but at the time, maybe in my naiveté as a college student, I finished my degree and applied to the Diocese and the Bishop accepted me. I spent two years at the Isaac Jogues House of Discernment. I took it a year at a time. But once I was in my first year at the major seminary, about halfway through my third year of formation, it was no longer a year at a time. I committed to it, and said to myself, “I’m in this, I’m going all the way.”
Rev. Stephen Yusko's Bio
I am parochial vicar at Blessed Sacrament, Our Lady of the Americas Church, Mater Christi Church and All Saints Church, all in Albany, as well as assistant vocations director for the Diocese of Albany.
I grew up in Hudson, N.Y. I have an older brother and an older sister, so I am the youngest of three. We were your average family, we went to Sunday Mass and certainly believed, but like many Catholics today, we didn’t really know our faith. So, other than Mass on Sundays, the priority in our family was more often than not the sports that we played. Once again, the faith was there, but it wasn’t seen as the big priority. It was present, but in the background. It is kind of funny because when I talk to people who have known me for the majority of my life, especially my friends, they look back and say, “How the heck are you even a priest?”
I played baseball and was captain of the team in high school, I went to parties, and I dated. After high school, I went to college expecting to continue living my life as I had been, but I was injured at a morning practice a week before the season was going to start. That’s when I began to re-evaluate my priorities in life. The injury caused me to ask questions about my fundamental values, my tradition, my faith and to confront those hard and difficult questions: Have I been living my life as I ought? Have I been wasting my life? Is there more to life? The injury also forced me to probe my faith and to ask the question: Is Catholicism true and is it worth my time?
I found that the more I researched my faith and the more I read about the lives of the saints, the more I started to fall in love with it. In fact, it was after reading about St. Ignatius of Loyola, who almost had his leg blown off by a cannonball — an injury that caused him to re-evaluate his life — that the thought of the priesthood came into my mind. So, the thought of the priesthood first appeared in my sophomore year in college, and it would continue to resurface time and time again — often in undeniable ways — as I continued my reversion throughout college and my time as a young professional until I finally made the decision to enter seminary at the age of 26.
What is fascinating about a vocation, a call from God, is that it is personal. God calls YOU. And because he is calling you, he does it in a way that you will notice and hopefully respond.