Corporate layoff steers Father Rumpza to the priesthood

By Dave Hrbacek The Catholic Spirit

A30-hour drive from San Diego to Minnesota in late June 2015 helped pave a path to the priesthood for Father John Rumpza, who grew up in St. Paul and attended Nativity of Our Lord parish.

At the time, he was working for a large software company in the California city and was seriously dating a woman he thought he would marry. Priesthood “wasn’t on my radar at all,” he said. At the same time, he said, he was open to that calling throughout his life and did give it serious consideration. That calling came to fruition with Father Rumpza’s May 27 ordination Mass at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul.

As of June 2015, it looked like marriage and raising a family would be his vocation. He was using his degree in business administration from Benedictine College in Kansas and making advancements in his career. After dating for a year, he and his girlfriend started considering marriage.

Then, that month, he got laid off. Try as he might, he couldn’t find a job. He decided his best chance would be moving back to Minnesota to take advantage of connections in his home state. Rather than continue the dating relationship long distance, the two mutually decided to break up. He spent his final evening in San Diego with her in late June.

He’ll never forget the stunning words she blurted out as they prepared to part ways.

“We had dinner and we were saying our goodbyes,” said Father Rumpza, 34. “Her face just froze. And, she just looked at me and she had this moment. I don’t know what happened exactly for her. But, she said, ‘Oh my gosh, I think you’re going to be a priest.’”

Her comment made a hard landing.

“I remember just thinking, ‘What?’” Father Rumpza, 34, recalled. “I had 30 hours in the car over the next three days alone, just me and the open road from San Diego to Minnesota. I packed my stuff in a pickup truck and was driving home. And, that (comment from his now former girlfriend) was the only thing I could think about the whole way home.”

Turns out, there were deep roots to a priestly vocation that had been planted years ago and finally were emerging. The beginning was a conversation he had back when he was in the fourth grade at Nativity School with his father, Mike. A family custom for him and his seven siblings was to have one-on-one time with their dad, usually going out to lunch or dinner. On one of those occasions, a seed was planted.

“He (his father) said, ‘John, I think it’s time for you to start asking God what he wants you to do with your life,’” Father Rumpza recalled. “He explained how it’s something that I would start asking, (but) it’s not something that God would tell me right away.”

In his case, it took more than two decades to get the answer. He went to some discernment events in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, including one at St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul. He joked that his favorite part of that night was the pizza. Though he was open all those years, he just didn’t feel a call to the priesthood — in grade school, high school or college.

“I was planning to get married and join the NBA,” he said. “I was not the kid playing Mass (at home). That was my little brother (Joe), actually. My little brother is the one in our family we thought would be a priest because, when he was a toddler, he’d hold up his sippy cup during the consecration (at Mass), imitating the priest.”

“Everybody thought he was going to be the priest, and no one was thinking that for me,” Father Rumpza said. “It’s pretty funny how God works.”

Once back home, Father Rumpza dug into discernment. During his first week, he went to the eucharistic adoration chapel at St. Mark in St. Paul, just blocks from the house where he grew up.

“I prayed for an hour, and after that hour, I was just kind of sitting peacefully with God,” he said. “And this question just kind of poured out of my heart, and it was with this childlike openness and almost a sense of wonder: ‘Are you calling me to be a priest?’”

God spoke. “The response was immediate,” Father Rumpza said. “I heard and felt God’s voice in the depths of my heart say, ‘Come, be a priest for me.’ And I felt it in my whole being. It was so strong. God spoke to me, and I had no question about it.”

He waited a day “to make sure I’m not crazy and this wasn’t a fluke,” he said. Then, he contacted the vocations director for the archdiocese, Father David Blume. After they talked, Father Blume said he could start his seminary studies in fall 2016. But Father Rumpza wanted to start in fall 2015, just weeks away.

“There was an urgency I was feeling, a peaceful urgency,” Father Rumpza said. “So, I asked him, ‘Is that even possible (to start in fall 2015)?’ And, he said, ‘Well, I don’t think the door is locked yet. It might be cracked open.’”

Father Blume, new to the role of vocations director, moved the application forward quickly and Father Rumpza spent the final weeks of summer moving through the process.

Father William Kratt on the occasion of his ordination to the Priesthood.

We extend our prayers to you, and have every confidence of your ministry in the Archdiocese.