"God Had to Give Me a Nudge"

Deacon Peter Lawrence is a fourth-year graduate seminarian studying for the Diocese of Lansing. He is scheduled to be ordained to the priesthood on June 10, 2016.

Q: Talk about your background growing up as a Catholic.

A: I grew up in a big Catholic family. I'm number two of eight kids. My parents [David and Janet Lawrence] were involved in the Word of God charismatic community in Ann Arbor. Growing up, our faith was always important.

They obviously took us to Mass every weekend. I was homeschooled for grade school, and then for middle and high school I was in public school. I remember my mom would teach us in homeschool and she'd often take us to daily Mass. My parents also made praying together as a family a big priority as well.

Q: Was it then that you heard the call to the priesthood or was it later in life?

A: Initially, I had thoughts of the priesthood when I was young, probably around seven or eight years old. As I got older, that thought faded from my mind. Faith was important to my family, but I would say it was less important to me. I was involved in youth group, attended Mass weekly, and from the outside looking in I might have considered myself a good Catholic. But looking back now, my faith wasn't the most important thing for me as it should have been. I never rejected the faith; it was just something I didsomething I went through the motions for.

I think what was lacking for me was a real personal relationship with Christ. I would pray every now and then when I needed something, but I didn't see my faith as something that had a day-to-day impact on me. I thought God was remote and he only cared about the serious things. I looked at my faith more in a legal sense, based on the rules of don't do this, don't do that, or you're going to hell. That was how I lived my faith until my second year of college. That's when things really started to change.

Q: So, what happened at college?

A: I did two years at a community college in Kalamazoo where I grew up. I graduated with an associate's degree in 2007. In May of that year, before I transferred to Central Michigan, I was invited by two friends to go to Franciscan University of Steubenville on a young adults retreat. I had been to Steubenville twice before with my youth group. I had had very powerful experiences on those youth retreats, 2,000-3,000 kids praising and worshiping the Lord, and I would get fired up for my faith. However, that would only last about as long as the weekend did.

But the young adult retreat was different. It was a lot smaller. It was more reflective, there was free time to be alone with the Lord, to go to confession, to pray. There were speakers who were really speaking to what I was going through, saying, Your faith needs to be personal with a God who loves you instead of following a bunch of rules. I felt like they were speaking directly to me.

I remember one priest saying, How can you have a relationship with someone you never talk to? It hit me dead center. I thought, If that's what it means to be practicing my faith, to have a personal relationship with Christ, then I've been doing a pretty poor job of it.

I was comfortable keeping God at a distance. I didn't want him completely out of my life, but I didn't want him to get too close because I didn't know what he would ask me to do.

Q: And he did ask you for something! Is that when your vocation really started to come around for you?

A: Yes, I came back from the retreat and thought, Alright, I really need to allow Jesus into my life, or I need to stop calling myself Catholic. I can't keep saying I believe but then not letting it have a practical impact on my life.

So, I committed to start praying every day. I decided I was going to read the Scriptures every day and that I was going to give five minutes of silence to God where I would shut up and listen to him and just be quiet in his presence.

There wasn't any dramatic conversion experience like St. Paul. It was giving that time in prayer to God every day and slowly realizing that, yes, everything that the Church teaches is true, and yes, God really has a plan for my life. It was like seeing everything with new eyes again.

Q. New eyes, just like St. Paul.

A. All the sacraments really hit me in a new way, too. I started going to daily Mass and it was at Mass where the first thoughts of priesthood really started coming to me. I had thoughts of me being on the altar and celebrating Mass or giving a homily. And initially, I pushed those thoughts away.

But I continued to pray and that's when God needed to give me a little bit more of a nudge because I wasn't moving quickly enough for him. He started sending people to ask me about the priesthood. I had random people coming up to me, saying, Have you thought about the priesthood? or You would make a really good priest. Eventually, I got so annoyed I said to God, Alright, God, fine. If you'll stop sending me these people asking about the priesthood, then I'll think about it. And I stressed the word, think.

So I talked with our vocation director at that time, Msgr. Jerry Vincke, just to get some basic information about the priesthood/seminary. I decided that I wanted to finish my degree first but I told him, After I graduate, I'll let you know, and that's where I left it.

Then when I went to Central Michigan, I got involved with a great young adult group called Corpus Christi Catholic Fellowship. It was a great group of people who were really striving for holiness. I really got involved in our parish, St. Mary's. It was a great time of growing in my faith and continuing to discern the priesthood.

There wasn't a lightning bolt when I knew, I'm supposed to be a priest. It was kind of a slow, steady feeling of being more attracted to this, feeling more and more peaceful about this, that Jesus is calling me. After I graduated from Central, I was still feeling called to the priesthood. I asked our vocation director for the application, and in the fall of 2010 I started here at Sacred Heart.

Q: And it all started with prayer.

A: Exactly. I can honestly say that I would not be in the seminary without having a prayer life. There's no way in the world I would have stayed in seminary without a prayer life. I wouldn't have lasted two weeks.

Q: God willing, in a few months, you'll be ordained a priest. What are the things at Sacred Heart you're most grateful about?

A: One of the great things we're blessed with here at Sacred Heartand, honestly, it's very easy to take for grantedis the great faculty. Obviously, the professors here are very astute academically, very qualified in their different areas. But more important than that is the witness of their lives.

There's a variety across the spectrum of personality and interests, but to see that variety of people all having a committed relationship with the Lord, I think is one of the biggest things that can go unnoticed when you're around it all the time. To have all the priests seeking holiness, and then to have all the lay members of the faculty seeking the same thing, it's an incredible witness to us seminarians.

Q: You mentioned that your father is also a deacon. How great is it to have your dad as part of the clergy?

A: It is great! We bounce ideas off each other, and it's cool to talk with him about what he's doing in his ministry. My dad was ordained in 2009 to the permanent diaconate for the Diocese of Lansing. At that time, I was already looking seriously at the priesthood, so it was really beautiful to be at his ordination. It was a great witness to me and it was a blessing for our family. I also have an uncle who is a permanent deacon too, so I was able to have the great blessing and privilege of having both of them vest me for my diaconate ordination.

Q: How has it been going since your diaconate ordination? What is the parish that you're serving at?

A: It's been great! I'm serving at Holy Family Parish in Grand Blanc, with our former vocations director, Monsignor Vincke. That's part of the challenge now, being in your last year in seminary, you can feel divided a bit but in a good way. There's a great desire to be at the parish, and I really enjoy my time there on the weekends. And it's great to see, even in the short time I've been a deacon, to see how God can work in ways you just don't expect.

Something I'm still trying to get better at is preaching homilies and seeing how God can use me to speak to someone, even when I think, You didn't say that very well. I remember one homily. It was the last Mass of the day, so I was already feeling kind of worn out. I forgot a part of the homily and I thought, Probably nobody got anything out of it.

Then someone came up to me and said, I never really thought about what you mentioned in your homily. I'm going to have to take this home and pray about what you said. It was a great moment of humility for me. I was thinking that this was the worst homily I gave that Sunday and God still used it. One of the biggest blessings is seeing how God uses even our meager efforts.

Q: Are you excited for ordination?

A: Absolutely. It's amazing the kind of authority that God entrusts to weak, sinful human beings. It blows me away at times. Sometimes in my prayer I'll be thinking, God, why would you give to people who mess up so much the incredible power to make you present at the Mass or forgive sins or bring people into eternal life through Baptism? It's so humbling that God is entrusting me with this great responsibility. I can't even put it into words how excited I am.

Q: What kind of priest do you want to be for your parishioners?

A: Honestly, I hope this isn't a cop out, but I just want to help get people to Heaven. I want to allow God's grace to work through me to draw as many people as I can to Heaven. There's nothing that would give me greater joy than that. If God uses me to get just one person to Heaven, then I'll consider myself a successful priest.