Family
Family > Testimony: JoAnn Lauricello
Oh my God….a Priest????
I come from an Italian family whose mother and father went to church every Sunday. To her the priest was the be all, and the end all. You never spoke badly about a priest!!!! They were men to be respected and they were special. They were holy and kind and helped you when you needed them. They were Bing Crosby in the “Bells of St Mary” for crying out loud! They had all the answers to all of your problems! I always saw the world differently than my mother. The nun’s outfits were kind of cool, I would have really loved having one of their capes, but the priests were just unapproachable. Sometimes they would horse around with some of the kids on the playground but otherwise you just saw them twice a week at Mass and you liked it that way. I would give my mother a hard time about confession and tell her why do I have to tell the priest my sins, why can’t I just tell God? When I was in high school I was more philosophical, I would tell her that I don’t sin. To me sin was anything that made me feel uncomfortable or guilty and I don’t do anything that makes me feel that way. I definitely had an answer for everything and yet…my faith in God was, and is, unshakeable. Needless to say my impression of priests has changed somewhat through the years.
My son comes from a divorced agoraphobic mother and a Jewish father. He and his brother would go visit my parents in Florida to get away for summers but when my father was dying of cancer he went, by himself, and took care of him. I am talking Junior High School age…not an adult. Only God knows what pressure that was to a child.
When I divorced I had promised Michael’s father that the boys would pick which religion they wanted to be when they were ready. I wouldn’t influence them in any way. Needless to say I was in total shock when my son came to me in Junior High and told me he wanted to go through the RCIA program. I was afraid, would my ex-husband think I pushed him, so I did the reverse. I never showed him any emotion about it one way or the other thinking I was keeping my promise. With no encouragement from me he went through the program. His father stuck by him but his Jewish grandparents and family wrote him off.
Not long after he finishes RCIA he informs me that he wants to become a priest! A Priest? My Son a priest? Can’t be! I couldn’t fathom it! What did I do to deserve this? I curse like a truck driver most times and I was never my idea of what a priest’s mother should be!! With all of the sex abuse scandals at the time, people would think he was a pedophile or people would assume he was gay! I remember when he was Cathedral Seminary in Douglaston that I finally worked up the nerve to ask him. He said to me, with this little smile on his face, "Ma…just because I’m not going to be in a relationship with a woman doesn’t mean I want one with a man.” Wow, he was right! I never thought of that! Being from the 60’s and 70’s, the concept of not wanting to be in a physical relationship with another human being was just so foreign to me, but his answer put my mind to rest on that score. I know, crazy thoughts, but all kinds of things go through a mother’s mind…or at least they went through my mind.
My next problem on this whole thing about him becoming a priest was I felt he hadn’t lived a regular life yet…how could he give up what he didn’t experience? He turned down a full scholarship to Baruch College in order to go into the College Seminary program. He never was in a committed relationship. But with all of this, I would never tell him not to do something that made him happy. I always told both of my sons that I didn’t care if they were business men or digging ditches as long as they were happy, of course I never imagined one of them would want to be a priest when I said this.
When he entered the major seminary in Huntington, things changed. Here is the first hit to my Bing Crosby image of a priest! I watch for two years while my son battled and defended his different view point and ideology. I saw struggle and sadness, I felt pain. Now you have to understand that I have always taught my sons not to be followers and to think for themselves. So, you can imagine how that was going for my son in the Seminary. Eventually, everyone had enough; Michael’s time at the seminary was put on hold as he began to work in Manhattan at a major hospital. I was not fond of that seminary and I was glad that Michael moved on, but I was sad that things did not work out the way he had hoped.
After a year in a half of working in the City, the then new Bishop of Brooklyn asked Michael to reconsider returning to the seminary. How can he go back? I don’t understand this. He’s working for a hospital that is offering him money to stay and a promotion, the people there love him and he wants to go back to the seminary anyway. He tells me that he could stay at the hospital and make the money every year but that he would never be as happy as becoming a priest. Well it might not have been the best scenario but it was a wake-up call for me. I was finally at peace with my son’s decision. Anyone who could go through what he went through; and tell me that he still wanted to be a priest, should be a priest. And now I wanted it for him too.
Well people do not change so quickly and the same problems waited for my son when he returned to the seminary. Only this time, it was not just me who saw Michael’s call to the priesthood, but his Bishop saw it too. Michael is then transferred to St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia. Thank you God!!! I finally get a glimpse of the way a Seminary should be and my son is happy again. Bing Crosby is alive and well and living in Philadelphia and the Brooklyn Diocese. I meet some of the most religious and kindest men. There is actually an aura of goodness around these men. They are truly special.
My son finally became a priest in June, 2005. He was sent to a wonderful parish and the people there love him. I am in awe every time I see him pray the Mass or give a homily. I watch him help and comfort people. He makes them laugh at Mass during his homilies and he really connects with them. I watched him two months after he was ordained, sit on the altar and cry while he celebrated his step-father’s funeral Mass. All I kept thinking was oh God please let him get through this…and he did. This is what he was meant to do. I could have tried to change his mind all of those years ago but ultimately it was his choice and if I had succeeded he would have never been truly happy doing anything else. In the end it doesn’t matter what we, as parents, feel about our sons becoming priests, it is what would make them happy. If our sons have a true calling then they will know it and eventually so will we. A peace will come over you when you finally accept their decision and see that it was the right one. If they don’t have a true calling, they will find that out also, on their own.
JoAnn Lauricello is the mother of Fr. Michael Louis Gelfant ‘05
Fr. Gelfant is the Parochial Vicar of St. Anselm Parish in Bay Ridge.
