Ave Maria Graduates in the Religious Life
ANSWERING
I
GOD’S CALL BY ZACHARY CROCKETT
a v e m a r i a m a g a z i n e | f a l l 2015
n early July, over 700 high-school students descended on the campus of Ave Maria University to attend the Ablaze Youth Conference. They crowded into the Golisano Fieldhouse—but not to cheer on the Ave Maria Gyrenes. They were silent, their eyes drawn to the speaker commanding their attention atop a dimly-lit stage.
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“When I was going around with the Blessed Sacrament…your eyes were filled with so much light!” he shouts. “As a priest, there is no greater joy.” For Father Pagano, this is where it all began. Before being ordained to the priesthood in 2013 and being assigned to the parish where he grew up in St. Augustine, Richard Pagano was a student of Ave Maria University. He spent much of his time ministering to the youth of the town. The training served him well as he prepared to enter seminary upon graduating from AMU in 2008. His message to the young people at Ave Maria this summer was poignant. “Take a stand for Christ,” he says. “Especially in the cultural context of the world today, the Church needs you and the world needs your witness.”
Like Father Pagano, many AMU graduates are witnessing to Christ by answering the call to religious vocations. Indeed, the number of religious entrants at Ave Maria is remarkable for such a short time. In AMU’s dozen years of existence, there are more than 40 ordained priests, seminarians, and religious sisters who have received their education from Ave Maria University, including graduates from every year since 2005. The blending of vocation and education at Ave Maria is unique. Perhaps no one knows this better than Sister Albert Marie Surmanski. As a graduate of the Class of 2005, she subsequently entered the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist and went on to receive her M.A. in Theology from AMU in 2011. In 2014, she received her Ph.D. in Theology, also from AMU.
Sister Albert Marie summarizes her experience succinctly: “I feel at home at Ave Maria.” Having come full circle, Sister Albert Marie now teaches undergraduate and graduate-level students at Ave Maria as an Instructor of Theology and Research Fellow. She is excited to give back to the University that has given her so much, and finds a particular joy in helping AMU students reach the heights of their vocations and educations. “I hope the students I teach experience God’s love for them and understand better the vocation He calls them to,” she says. This past summer, a number of young men entered the seminary. Joseph Haas and Kyle Eads (‘15) will join the Archdiocese of New York, Cameron Popik (‘14), and Alexander Pince (‘12), who began