Closing Banquet

Sent to Preach the Gospel

REV. MR. GRANT DVORAK ‘22, DIOCESE OF BISMARCK

Rev. Mr. Louis Cona '22 (Rockville Centre) is sent forth to preach the Gospel at the Closing Banquet. Seated are Rev. Mr. Michael Hoye '22 (Worcester) and spiritual director Rev. Msgr. James McNamara (Rockville Centre).

The closing banquet is unlike any other banquet at The Pontifical North American College, especially for a man departing the College to serve as a priest back in his home diocese.

We invite guests to other banquets throughout the year and put together a program that welcomes and entertains them, but the purpose of this last banquet is unquestionably distinct in scope. Beginning with Mass and dinner, we celebrate the work of God in formation that has taken place in the past year, and we commemorate the purpose for which the seminary exists: to form priests. The evening includes toasts for departing faculty, and a deacon gives a speech on behalf of his classmates departing for their ordinations. Finally, those departing the College are given their commission: they are “sent to preach the Gospel.”

It is a memorable scene. First, our Vice Rector Fr. David Schunk ‘10 (San Francisco) stands and announces, “When a man finishes his time of formation here in Rome, in his file next to his name, it does not say ‘graduated’ or ‘completed.’ Rather, it reads, ‘sent to preach the Gospel.’”

As each man who will be returning home hears his name called and stands up, an overwhelming sense of camaraderie fills the room as he looks around at his fellow deacons and priests who rise with him. The words of Jesus to his disciples break upon his mind: “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel” (Mk 16:15). The same delegation given to the Eleven is handed on to him, whose responsibility is now to proclaim the Good News that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

Suddenly, so many memories of his time spent in seminary fill his mind with wonder and his heart with gratitude. “I am now one who has been sent.” What began with a simple “yes” in response to a mysterious tug on his heart to the priesthood brings the man to a house of formation. He spends time with Jesus, with men who find themselves in the same boat, and he sometimes struggles to really believe that he has been called to such a vocation. Much of that doubt quells when his own perceived weakness and apparent shortcomings are met with the assurance of God’s grace and the charge “to be… set apart for the Gospel of God” (Rm 1:1). n