Deacon Sean Danda heard God’s call to the priesthood early in his life

Pope Benedict XVI greets then deacon candidates Sean Danda, center, from St. Malachy Parish in Brownsburg, Nicholas Vaskov, left, of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, and Jesse Burish, right, of the Diocese of LaCrosse, Wis., in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. The seminarians were theology students at the Pontifical North American College in Rome. (Submitted photo / L’Osservatore Romano)

By Mary Ann Wyand

For most of his life, Sean Danda has wanted to be a priest.

He heard God’s call to the priesthood as early as the second grade at St. Malachy School in Brownsburg, and talked about becoming a priest when he grew up.

At Cardinal Ritter Jr./Sr. High School in Indianapolis, his friends and teachers all knew that he wanted to study for the priesthood after graduation.

As a sophomore, he won the first-place award in the 10th-grade division of the Indianapolis Serra Club’s vocations essay contest with his insightful description of the priesthood and religious life.

“Christ’s love is a love for all times,” he explained in his essay. “Priests and religious bring that love to us, and call us to share that love with other people.”

He described the priesthood and religious life as “a fulfillment of God’s plan,” and wrote that “to be a priest, sister or brother in today’s world will take good Catholic roots, a call to service and a good connection with people.”

Family members, friends and priest mentors agree that Deacon Sean Danda is a compassionate, dedicated, faith-filled and prayerful young man who will enjoy helping people in his priestly ministry.

He will be ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein on June 27 at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis, and the rite of ordination will be the realization of his longtime dream. His Mass of Thanksgiving is at 2:30 p.m. on June 28 at St. Malachy Church, 9833 E. County Road 750 North, in Brownsburg.

“I can distinctly remember the first day I met Sean Danda,” Msgr. Joseph F. Schaedel, vicar general, recalled. “It was at St. Malachy on Holy Thursday in 1995. I think he was in the fifth grade. I was the assistant at St. Malachy Parish at the time. He introduced himself and said, ‘I’m Sean Danda, and I’m going to be a priest.’ I thought, at the time, ‘Well, that’s great!’ And he did it.

“He’s a determined young man, a very bright young man, and he comes from a fine Catholic family,” Msgr. Schaedel said. “He’s always been prayerful. His mother [Katherine] is chronically ill, and he and his sister [Heather] had to be of service [to her while growing up].”

Father Eric Johnson, vocations director for the archdiocese, said Deacon Danda enthusiastically devoted himself to his theology studies at St. John Vianney Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., then at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, where he will return in October to complete a Licentiate in Fundamental Theology.

“He’s a very compassionate, faith-filled man of prayer who is sensitive to the needs of others,” Father Johnson said. “He has a real desire to be of service to others. He understands suffering, and where love is in the midst of all that suffering.”

Father Joseph Moriarty, the associate director of spiritual formation at Saint Meinrad School of Theology, served as chaplain at Cardinal Ritter High School and later as archdiocesan vocations director.

“He has always expressed interest in the priesthood,” Father Moriarty said. “He has great compassion, fidelity, faithfulness and a very established prayer life that I think was forged by his parents and their promise to raise him in the practice of the faith. … He’s a fine young man.”

Deacon Danda’s sister, Heather, also answered God’s call to religious life. She is a postulant in the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity in Belcourt, N.D.

Because of serious health complications from systemic scleroderma, a chronic autoimmune disease, Katherine Danda lives with the Little Sisters of the Poor and the elderly residents at the St. Augustine Home for the Aged in Indianapolis.

“I’m very devoted to Mary and the rosary,” she said. “I just pray that she will keep him in her mantle and keep him faithful to his calling from God. My prayers have also been to see him ordained because I didn’t know if my illness was going to allow me to do that.”

She appreciates the opportunity to go to daily Mass at the St. Augustine Home, and is looking forward to watching her son’s ordination with her husband, Richard, and their daughter at the cathedral.

“Just to be able to see him consecrate the Eucharist will be overwhelming,” Katherine Danda said. “I think he will go out of his way to do anything to help anybody. I know that this is what he is called to do with his life.”

In an e-mail interview from Rome, Deacon Danda said he is “very grateful for my Catholic education, which not only prepared me well academically, but also helped me to integrate the faith in myself and my life. The voice of God often came to me through my teachers and peers. It was just a matter of me listening.

“I first started pondering priesthood in second grade during first Holy Communion preparation,” he said. “I could see no better way to serve God and others than by offering the Mass and giving people the Eucharist.

“God spoke to me, like anyone else, through the ordinary living of life, through silence spent in prayer with him and through the tragedies that we experience,” Deacon Danda explained. “… If we don’t take time for silence and solitude, how will we hear his voice?”

Pius is his confirmation name.

“I chose St. Pius X as a patron,” he said. “The Eucharist has always played a central role in my life, and [Pope] Pius X was a great promoter of the Eucharist. … Pius X reminds us that there is no place on Earth where we will be unable to find God present.”

His priest mentors are Msgr. Schaedel, Father Moriarty, Father Vincent Lampert, Conventual Franciscan Father Troy Overton and Father Wilfred Day.

“Each of them was a witness of priestly joy to me,” Deacon Danda said. “I noticed how happy, fulfilled and joyful these priests were. I was attracted to that. I wanted to live that joy and to be the same kind of joyful man that they were. They also helped me to see how differently gifted priests are, and each encouraged me to see and know what gifts and talents God had given me.” †