St. Joseph theology teacher ministers at St. John the Baptist Parish while discerning priesthood call

Courtesy photo St. John the Baptist Catholic Church

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John Lee (left), who has been serving at St. John the Baptist Parish since the beginning of August, is shown with Deacon Jeremy Castellano at the Sept. 13 Mass at which Fr. Stephen Tilley was installed as pastor.

DRAPER — John Lee, who teaches at St. Joseph Catholic High School in Ogden, travels each weekend to Draper to minister at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.

Lee, who also teaches government and is in charge of campus ministry and is the co-advisor of St. Joseph’s junior class, has a special connection with St. John the Baptist, patron saint of the parish in Draper.

His mother used to tell him the story of his birth. “On the 29th morning of October, in the year 1994, my mother lost her favorite rosary when she flung it across the hospital room, and broke my father’s hand as she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. She named him ‘John’ after John the Baptist, because, like Elizabeth, she had him later in life,” Lee said.

As a kid, he was proud of being named after the saint, he said, and now he sees the intercession of Divine Providence in having the opportunity to serve at St. John the Baptist Parish every Saturday and Sunday.

Lee began working with St. John’s pastor, Fr. Stephen Tilley, when the priest was assigned to St. Joseph Parish in Ogden.

“When Fr. Tilley was the vicar, he used to come to the school very frequently, and we became really good friends,” Lee said.

When Fr. Tilley was appointed to St. John the Baptist Parish, Lee was disappointed at first, but now realizes that God always has a plan. He began discerning a call to the priesthood, and Fr. Tilley told him that if he wanted to learn how a priest serves at a parish he could help at St. John’s. So, since August, Lee has been Fr. Tilley’s shadow at the weekend services.

 “The primary and ultimate reason I find myself giving up these precious weekends to serve at St. John the Baptist Parish is because of one particularly tenacious man who, I understand, is very well-known and very well-loved at St. John the Baptist; the one who called me down from Ogden and somehow convinced me to make this hour-long drive down to Draper every weekend in order to follow him around,” said Lee, referring to Jesus Christ.

 Being able to serve the Lord and his people is, for Lee, just happiness.

“The secret to happiness is to have a healthy soul, and a healthy soul is the consequence of love,” he said. “Service, especially in the Church, and serving the people of the Church at St. John has made my soul very healthy, which has made me very happy.”

Lee plans to continue serving at St. John’s for a year while discerning his vocation to the priesthood. After that, he will submit an application to St. Michael’s Abbey in Orange County, Calif. The abbey is run by the Norbertine Fathers, a religious order founded in the 12th century by St. Norbert of Xanten.

“I am at St. John the Baptist to serve Christ and Christ alone, because it is only in serving the Christ that abides in each one of you that I can truly serve you,” Lee said. “As a poor wayfaring pilgrim in this wayward world, I am looking forward to going home.”

Now more than ever, people need to serve and to love others, he said.

Sometimes people take pride in serving the poor or the most in need, he said, “but the hardest people to serve and love are the people at your own home. … If you want a truly healthy soul, begin loving in your home, and from there it can spread to the community and to the world.”