Seminarian to be ordained transitional deacon

Intermountain Catholic

+ Enlarge

SALT LAKE CITY — Tristan Dillon has always wanted to be a priest. One of his earliest memories is attending Mass with his mother at St. James Cathedral in Seattle, Wash., where he grew up. Awestruck by the beauty and majesty of the cathedral, he tugged on his mother’s sleeve and said, “Mom, I love our Church.” As he grew, that love deepened. When Dillon was a senior in high school in St. George, where his family had moved when he was 16, applying to become a priest in the Diocese of Salt Lake City seemed a natural next step in his life journey.

Fast forward almost ten years, and on May 14, Dillon will complete another milestone on that path when he is ordained a transitional deacon by Bishop Oscar A. Solis at the Cathedral of the Madeleine.

“I really thought I was going to be more stressed than I am, but I just feel a calm excitement,” he said. “I feel like I’ve discerned well these past eight years; I’ve wrestled with the anxiety of the priestly life, of the commitment in the past, and now I sit here and I’m excited. I have no right to be worried because God is calling me. The Church has agreed, and God will be with me in all of the challenges of the future.”

“The world needs Jesus,” he said. “The world thinks they know who Jesus is and they need to be corrected. The world takes Jesus as just a nice, moral teacher that said a few good things about being nice, and Jesus Christ is more than that. He is our God made Man to experiencing everything we have and to save us, to enter into intimate relationship with humanity. The priesthood means to be a witness of that.”

Dillon formally began his path to the priesthood eight years ago when he began attending Mount Angel Seminary. There he obtained a bachelor’s degree in theology and literature and now is pursuing advanced education in theology. In 2020, he spent his pastoral year serving at St. Joseph the Worker Parish, helping the pastor, Father Javier Virgen, by serving at Masses and working in the front office. In his spare time, he started a book club with parishioners. During the pandemic, he helped with livestreaming services.

“It is a blessing to have Tristan in our diocese as he assumes that responsibility of becoming a transitional deacon,” Fr. Virgen said. “He did a very good pastoral year in terms of getting to know the parish reality, giving some reflections at the daily Masses, also meeting with the people. I believe he’s going to be a good fit for the diocese with all his qualifications; he’s smart and practical and he will do good once he becomes a priest in the Diocese of Salt Lake City. He, as an instrument in God’s hands, will be a channel to bring people to the Lord. Through the sacraments, he will be a good instrument in God’s hands to feed the people in our diocese.”

Last summer, Dillon was assigned to St. John the Baptist Parish, where he served at Masses, helped with the youth and worked on his thesis.

“Tristan is a good man who always places Christ first,” said Fr. Stephen Tilley, pastor of St. John the Baptist Parish. “While he was serving our parish, he was able to really connect with the youth in an impactful way. We are very blessed in our diocese to have him as a transitional deacon, and I cannot wait until he is back home serving our diocese as a priest. We need more young men like him to have the courage to say ‘yes’ to the call of the priesthood.”

Dillon will return to Mt. Angel this fall and finish out his last year of study before returning to the diocese and be ordained as a priest next year. He is anxious to serve, he said.

“I want to be a joyful priest, one where people can say, ‘Yes, Tristan loves his priesthood and we can easily tell; he is a man of both subtle and exuberant joy,’” he said. “I find my joy in ministry, in being able to work with people and serve them, just chat with people. One of my greatest joys is just going to coffee hour and hanging out with parishioners, hearing about their lives, their voices, their experiences of just life and their experiences of God.”

The need for priests in the Church is more critical now than ever, he said.

“God has instituted the priesthood; Jesus Christ has called men to be priests to give the sacraments, to give God present in baptism, present intimately in the Eucharist,” he said. “The priest is there for that first and fundamentally, but the priest is also there to make the love of God present to the people. In whatever is going on in the life of a person, the priest is there to encounter them. When they experience joy, the priest is there. When a person experiences despair, the priest is there, ministering on behalf of God. The priest is there at the joy of birth and baptism and there at the despair of death to help put the body to rest and to help the community say goodbye. The priesthood is a sign of God’s presence in all of the things that life has to carry.”