Mark O'Dea -- Vocation

Mark O’Dea

You might say that my path to the priesthood began my junior year in high school. If you really want the in-depth look at it though, you can even say it began ephemerally freshman year when several friends asked me: “Hey Mark, are you gonna become a priest?” The answer was no. But that’s only if you wanted to look that far back, anyway. Oh, and for the record, I went to Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, NJ.

You see, in my junior year, I was unexpectedly deemed team captain of the fencing team. Not a squad captain; not an assistant captain; just a full-blown leap into the position of overall team captain. And well, let’s just say that the promotion of a no-name athlete to team captain is beyond rare in DBP sports.

This, of course, is not to mention the fact that I had just switched weapons from foil to epee in order to fill in missing varsity slots on our team. “Well, that’s just grand,” right? Having a player not fence with his primary weapon and uphold captain standards? Beautiful. Oh, and for financial reasons, our coach had to leave maybe three weeks into the season. Perfect, yea?

It was a most pessimistic beginning to the DBP fencing season of 2007-2008. No coach, no experience, no hope. I don’t think I should have to try very hard to convince you that I was scared out of my mind! My hands shook so terribly that season, I was so scared. And the day of reckoning I remember very clearly: between two meets, I lost five of my six bouts in a row… In a row!

Naturally, I felt pretty lousy by the end of that second meet. I remember coming home that evening, dead tired. I let my equipment hit the floor with echoic THUD and virtually collapsed onto the couch, flicking on the TV. By chance (or fate, if you wish), I came across the movie “Saving Private Ryan” at the scene where American sniper Pvt. Jackson recites a psalm as he zeroes his rifle on an enemy soldier. Say… might that psalm apply in my case? I mean, he has a rifle, and I’ve a blade; close enough, right? … Psalm 144, in case you were interested.

So, come the next meet, I had my psalm memorized. The match begins, my turn is up, I recite the psalm, and behold a 5-0 victory over their best fencer. I rubbed my eyes at the end of that, I didn’t think it was true. The succeeding bouts that match ended similarly: all victories. “Whoa… this really works,” I thought.

That prayer served me so well that season, in fact, that I wanted to share it with the other fencers the following year. With that course in mind, I consulted Fr. Jay Horan, DBP’s Coordinator of Youth Ministry. He helped me to pick out Biblical passages appropriate for team prayers and individual blessings and officially commissioned me as Don Bosco Prep’s first student-chaplain.

And in that process, I rationally thought, “I’m saying all these prayers and such; perhaps I’ve a vocation in this.” You know, as a passing thought. Very cursory thinking. “Let’s check.”

That being said, I signed up for a vocations retreat with the Salesians. But in all honesty, that retreat really didn’t strike very well with me. I didn’t feel the Holy Spirit acting within me there at the retreat. So in logical thought, I dismissed the idea of a priestly vocation for myself.

Well, the season continued as per usual, and I invested myself more and more into my duties as chaplain. I continued saying my personal psalm, carried on with the team prayers, and blessed my teammates before they competed, and received wonderful feedback from my team regarding this personal ministry. But in this, I once more heard the whispering thought.

Boy, was it a struggle, this time. Restless sleep like you would not believe! But in the end, like most vocation stories, I had to admit, “Alright, You win.” . . . I don’t think Psalm 144 was going to help that battle, there.