HOLY FAMILY CATHEDRAL
BRU
MEET SEMINARIAN
Holy Family Parishioner Reflects on Voca
W
hen Bruce Sander reflects on the path that brought him to Conception Seminary College in Missouri, there is a recurring theme — fraternity. Indeed, it is the many close connections that Bruce has formed over the years — with fellow altar servers, priests and, now, seminarian classmates — that give him the courage to continue seeking God’s will for his life. Growing up a parishioner of Holy Family Cathedral, Bruce was drawn to serving on the altar early on. He became an altar server at age 10 and continued into adulthood. “I got the altar server award when I was 18, and that is the age you typically stop serving,” he says. “But I continued. I had taken a leadership role in my teenage years, and one thing that was important was that I had really good fraternity with the other altar servers.” In addition to the close friendships Bruce enjoyed with his fellow altar servers, he had also found a role model in Msgr. Gier. “Msgr. Gier was my priest mentor,” Bruce says. “He is the priest I want to emulate, and the one I think of when I think about the priesthood. His homilies are one reason, but also his personality. He just has that unnamable quality where he can bring people together from all different backgrounds.” When Bruce was 18, he went on a series of seminary trips. He met Robert Williams (now a seminarian) and Fr. Robert Duck (now a priest serving in Stillwater). Once more, Bruce was inspired by meeting these fellow men of faith. However, he didn’t immediately discern a call to seminary. Instead, he went to community college, earning an associate degree in business administration. Grieving the loss of his mother to colon cancer in 2012, Bruce experienced a renewed reliance on his faith. He discovered his mother’s set of books on the Liturgy of the Hours, which brought consistency and structure to his prayer life. He returned to serving and being active in parish life at Holy Family. In 2016, he was asked to serve at the installation Mass for Bishop Konderla. God’s hand was in it all. “Who did I happen to run into after the Mass but Robert Duck!” Bruce says. “I hadn’t seen him in about eight years.
Seminarian Bruce Sander
I had trained him as an altar server, and we had a lot of great times on the seminary trips. I call these moments ‘Holy Spirit moments.’ I felt that spirit of discernment come alive in me again. It was something I had been procrastinating on, but this gave me the courage to reach out to Fr. Pratt and start the application process for seminary.” Bruce’s decision was further solidified when he made a pilgrimage to Rome for Fr. Duck’s ordination to the transitional diaconate and when he attended an ACTS retreat in Stillwater. Now in his third year of seminarian studies, he knows without a doubt that — whether he discerns a vocation to the priesthood or one to single or family life — he is exactly where God wants him to be right now. “Seminary is really a period of discernment,” Bruce says. “Whatever I do at the end of this, I’ll be better for continued on page 5
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