Ahead of their Ordination to the Priesthood on Saturday, June 7 at St. Patrick Cathedral, we sat down with our three transitional deacons for a Q&A about their discernment, their seminary experience and what they’re most looking forward to as ordination approaches.
Read on to learn more about Deacon Cole Mase, and check out the full, in-person interview with Rachel Troche of our Candid Catholic Convos podcast on the Diocese’s YouTube channel.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I am 29 right now, soon to be 30. My hometown is Palmyra and I go to Holy Spirit Catholic Church there. For the most part, in elementary and high school, I was in public school, except for a little bit in first grade when I was in Catholic school. I’ve been going to seminary at St. Charles Borromeo in Philadelphia.
My parents are Pamela and Tom Mase. I have one sister who is slightly younger than me, Kendra.
I would say it was overall pretty typical. We originally lived in the Allentown Diocese, in Jim Thorpe. We moved to the Harrisburg Diocese when I was in second grade, for my dad’s job. It was a very normal household. I went through CCD growing up, and it was pretty normal.
Growing up, I had thought about the priesthood, probably around my First Holy Communion. The idea came up and then it would come and go throughout the different years of my life and different situations. But honestly, I felt like I never really understood my faith; it was never really personal to me in a way that I thought that it meant something.
It really wasn’t until after I had gone away to college and studied there for a little while and then was working that I began to ask myself some big questions. It was then that I started to learn about my faith. I started to get into prayer and got involved in the parish at Holy Spirit. I was involved with the Knights of Columbus there and a bunch of building projects and things that we did that were a lot of fun. I was even on the Parish Council for about a year, so I had a little bit of immersion into the Parish Council life. It’s a great parish with a lot of great people there in Palmyra.
You mentioned working before entering the seminary.
I had gone to Shippensburg University and studied Political Science. I was really looking for a job, and for a lot of people coming out of college it’s not easy to find a job in what you studied initially. I had to find stop-gap jobs as I was looking, and I ended up working for a little while at R&K Subs, the very famous fundraiser subs. Then I worked at a Sheetz and was a shift manager there. After that, I had a little bit of time in Harrisburg where I got a job as a legislative monitor. I was kind of like a reporter. I would sit around and say what was happening, what they were talking about, who was debating who. It was at that time that I really started to grow in my faith and seek out that deeper relationship with God.
How did you hear God’s call?
I think initially it was maybe more so that it was a thought. I remember my First Communion vividly, in an interesting way. It was at Immaculate Conception in Jim Thorpe, since we hadn’t moved yet. It’s an Irish parish with older Irish traditions. All the kids, when we came up for our First Communion, we all knelt down on the first step. I was in front of the statue of the Blessed Mother. They came around and did the enrollment with the Brown Scapular and gave you a Rosary and wrapped it around your hand and had you hold a candle. I guess someone told me it was an Irish tradition, and when we received Communion, they would light the candle. I was holding the candle and holding the Rosary when I received Communion. That was when I remember hearing that maybe God wants me to be a priest.
I didn’t follow up on it, but every so often the thought would come back. The “hit over the head moment” came while I was working in Harrisburg. I started going to the Cathedral a lot because it was right there and daily Mass on my lunch break was convenient. One day, I couldn’t make it to daily Mass because something was going on at the Capital. But the Cathedral was open and I stopped in to pray later. I remember that I was starting to struggle with my job and what I wanted to do. I said, “Lord, I really wish that I could just be here. I wish I could be here and pray.”
There was this moment from the tabernacle – it wasn’t audible – but it was like getting hit in the chest with a brick, with the question, “Why don’t you?” It scared me at the time. I was thinking, “Oh no, I was supposed to be a priest.” I calmed myself down and thought, “OK, Lord, maybe that was you. I’m going to look into this and see if this is even possible.” I was out of college, working, further along – was this even a thing that I could still become a priest?
I also decided to keep praying and doing what I was doing for the next month and decided if it didn’t go away, or if it got bigger, I would go talk to somebody. Later on, I was told that was a really insightful discernment.
But that propelled me forward to eventually talk to my pastor and then the Vocations Director. I headed off to seminary the next year.
Who was most influential in helping you?
My pastor at the time – Father Anthony Dill – was super awesome. It was a big help to me because I was already nervous about it. But honestly, in my experience, prior to him being at our parish as a younger priest, most of the priests I had ever met growing up were frankly older. The perception you have as kid is, “Priests are all old, I can’t be a priest.” But then you meet a younger priest and you realize this is something anybody can be called to. Talking with Father Dill, he was a big help and a really good mentor to me throughout the years. I was very appreciative of all that he did and does.
Did you ever have any doubts or concerns?
In our culture and our day and age, it really is a counter-cultural decision to make. It’s not going to be understood by many people – even by and large by a lot of Catholics in the pews who might not fully understand what would drive a young man to want to become a priest.
I think there is an initial kind of fear that I’m not going to be accepted in this. I think every guy goes through that when they realize, “OK, I don’t 100 percent know how my parents are going to react.” My parents were very supportive and I’m blessed and thankful for that. But you never know how it’s going to go. That’s obviously a doubt and a nervousness about how family is going to react, how friends are going to react to this.
Going forward from that once you are discerning, there are obviously those questions about ability, worthiness. We all come from a place where we have struggles. We all have different backgrounds, but everyone has these universal struggles, universal hurts and wounds from the past, things that make coming to God a healing experience that we have to go through. Priests have to be holy, they have to be truly men of God. You want to be that, and so the thought is, “Can I be that? Can God do that in me?”
So one of those initial doubts is self-strength. Seminary is a place where that gets worked out, where you realize where God does a lot of work. That is the biggest blessing, overcoming those doubts, overcoming those fears. It’s the realization that yes, the bar is high, but God’s transforming power is enough. It’s a constant movement to accept that.
What was seminary like for you?
Walking in, there can definitely be a nervousness there, kind of even an anxiety about it. It is different. You realize that it’s going to be different. But there’s also an excitement there, because you’ve made a discernment to enter and you’re ready to start off on that journey to see what it’s all about.
Getting to seminary was a big moment for me. When I got there, one of the older seminarians who is now a priest for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia met us and was one of my early mentors to show me around for orientation. He said, “We’ll come back and I’ll help you get the stuff out of your car, but first let’s go to the chapel.”
But yes, entering seminary there can be those searching questions, like “What is this going to be like?” It isn’t like a normal college. In some ways it is – you make great friends, you have a good time, guys play sports, you have classes. It is more regimented than a normal college, though, because we have responsibilities that aren’t just classes. We have Morning Prayer, Mass, Evening Prayer together as well as your own personal routine. Finding that and getting into a groove can be one of the initial shocks but very rewarding once you get settled in there.
What have been your greatest joys from your six years in the seminary?
The spiritual growth has been one of the highlights, because we’re in a structured environment that is going to foster and encourage prayer. I think finding that relationship with God and even that joy of prayer has been a big highlight for me.
In discerning seminary, one of the reasons I didn’t know if I could be a priest was because I was like, “I don’t want to just pray all the time.” That’s really what I thought, but at the same time, as you go through formation you realize there is a deep joy in seeking out that communion with the Lord; there’s a deep longing for that. It’s from that relationship that everything else flows. For me, the spiritual formation aspect has probably always been closest to my heart.
How has your prayer life intensified, especially in these recent months leading up to ordination?
It can be at a different pace for everybody and people can be at different places along that journey, no matter where they are in formation. You have your foundational things. For example, in seminary we go to Mass every day and we also have the Liturgy of the Hours; we have certain hours of prayer each day. It’s reciting the Psalms or chanting the Psalms at times. Those are at different points of the day, so you have Morning Prayer, Midday Prayer, Evening Prayer, Night Prayer and the Office of Readings, which is a couple Psalms and two longer readings.
As a deacon and as priests, that is part of what we pray every day. Priests and deacons are bound by the Church; we promise to pray the Office every single day for ourselves and for the people, in union with the whole Church. Most people don’t know it’s mandatory that a priest pray his Office every single day, but it’s actually not mandatory that he celebrate Mass – obviously it is strongly encouraged and I think most, if not all, priests do, but technically speaking it is not required. And anybody can pray the Office; it’s a beautiful thing to take up.
Praying the Rosary has always been a big part of my experience, especially in growing in the faith. And then of course there is that time for meditation and sitting with the Scriptures, spending time in Adoration.
Is there an aspect of ministry that you enjoy most, or that you feel God has given you a special gift for?
One thing that I really do enjoy is the opportunity to preach. It’s one of those things you get nervous about when you’re preparing for it in seminary, but then you get out there and there’s just something about being able to talk to the people and share the message Jesus has for them. It’s a powerful thing for me and I hope to do my best there. I found it’s been very rewarding. My heart’s desire has been to share Jesus and that’s been where I’ve most concretely had the opportunity to do that.
What is on your heart and your mind as ordination approaches?
It has to be the Mass. I’ve been looking forward to celebrating the Mass. It’s not the only thing you look forward to, but it’s definitely been on my heart approaching ordination. I have a desire to enter into that and be prepared to stand there as another Christ. That’s a powerful thing that God has placed on my heart right now.
What advice do you offer a man who is discerning a call to the priesthood?
The hardest initial hurdle is to just talk to somebody about it. At least, that was my experience. My advice would be, if you’re thinking about it, go talk to a priest that you know, that you trust. Allow them to talk to you about it. There was the point in my life where the idea of the priesthood came up and there was a time in high school that I was going to talk to somebody about it but I didn’t. I guess in my mind, I thought that even if I floated the idea, they would box me up and ship me off and no one would see me until I became a priest. Sometimes we build things up in our minds and it’s not really that bad. So at least start the conversation. That initiates the process of talking more, praying about it, asking questions. Even if it’s an idea, give it a shot. God is not going to lead you astray. He will bring you to holiness. That might mean for a time discerning the priesthood and then maybe discerning it’s not what He is calling you to. But you’ll have grown closer to Him and be prepared for whatever it is He’s calling you to. And if He is calling you to be a priest, He knows that is going to bring you joy and fulfillment.
