Diocese of Covington - Messenger at 402 E. 21st Street, Covington, KY 41015 US - Deacon commits to give himself fully to Church and faithful

For Deacon Martin Pitstick the last four years of training at St. Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania have given birth to a rich appreciation of the true nature of his vocation. His priestly ministry, he has discovered, will go far beyond “doing” priestly acts, saying Mass, baptizing, anointing the sick, and other sacramental and pastoral actions. Instead, he understands now that being Christ for others — giving himself fully to the Church and the faithful — is the complete meaning of the priesthood.

Deacon Pitstick will be ordained a priest for the Diocese of Covington May 16 at 6:30 p.m. in the cathedral; Bishop Roger Foys, who was ordained a priest 35 years ago on May 16, will also ordain Deacon Daniel Schomaker in the same ceremony.

Before entering the seminary in 2004, Deacon Pitstick, 48, worked two years as a lay pastoral minister in a parish. He was able to perform some of the ministries that priests do, but he was not fulfilled — he knew he had not yet committed himself fully to the Church and its members, in a manner similar to that of a husband and father having given himself to wife and family.

After — or, rather, because of — ordination next week he will be making this complete commitment. “At his ordination a priest makes a living sacrifice of his life,” Deacon Pitstick said, “and through this sacrifice is able to say the words of consecration, ‘This is my body, given up for you.’”

The actions I did as lay minister I will now do “in and through my priestly office,” he said. “For example, when I give out communion as a future priest I am not just giving our Lord to people, I am also giving myself. Obviously I don’t mean this literally. What I mean is that the Eucharist is perpetuated and made available to the Church only through the participation of the actions of the priest — the action of Christ is made present through the action of the priest.”

Distributing communion as a lay person, he said, is like holding a flaming torch to give light to others. But because of ordination he becomes “a living flaming torch, where you yourself become the light for others through a radical and complete gift of self. …The priest, with his entire life, becomes a living sign that makes Jesus present to the world.

“This is not accomplished because of one’s own merit, but only because by God’s grace is one allowed to participate in this unique way in the priesthood of Christ.”

People long to give themselves to something that will make “a real difference in the world,” Deacon Pitstick said. “Young people are willing to make great sacrifices if it is for a good cause. I was gradually discovering and falling more and more deeply in love with something worthy of sacrificing my whole life for — to make Jesus present to the world in my own person. Now, more than ever, I want to be sacramentally configured to Christ as a priest — to Christ the Good Shepherd who offered up his life for the healing reconciliation of the world.”

Deacon Pitstick, as a lay minister wanting to have to have an even more meaningful impact on people’s lives and souls, credits Bishop Foys (then Msgr. Foys from the Diocese of Steubenville) with encouraging him to consider the priesthood, implanting in him the idea that “everything I wanted to do I could do better as a priest.”
“That priest is now my bishop, and I will soon be ordained a priest for his diocese because of the personal attention he gave to my vocation.”

Deacon Pitstick grew up on a farm in Fairborn, Ohio, in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. In college, he first majored in physics but eventually graduated with degrees in French and theology. He worked as a salesman and then owned his own business, but a thirst for ministry was always in his heart. He helped train other evangelists to make door-to-door visits. Then for three years he volunteered in France in a L’Arche community with mentally handicapped people. He returned to the U.S. and had what turned out to be his fateful discussion with Msgr. Foys. After two years of lay ministry he entered the seminary for the Diocese of Covington.

Now, he said, he wants to “bring the world the hope that we find in Christ Jesus.
“I want to bring people to Jesus so that they might experience his love and the power of his life changing them and renewing them and making them what they were created to be.”

“I can’t wait to be your priest!” Deacon Pitstick says to the people of the diocese. “Pray for me that I may be a good and holy priest.”

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