|
Joseph Michael Irwin By Ray Dyer OKLAHOMA CITY — On June 3, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Joseph Michael Irwin will be ordained Father Joseph Michael Irwin, a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Archbishop Eusebius J. Beltran will lay his hands on Irwin and ask the Holy Spirit to confer the Sacrament of Ordination. The following evening, surrounded by family and friends at Saint Joseph Parish in Norman, Father Irwin will celebrate his first Mass as a Catholic priest. There’s not much mystery in how Joe Irwin came to be Father Joseph Irwin, at least not if you ask his mother. “It’s a God thing,” said Cathy Irwin and she couldn’t ask for anything more wonderful for the oldest of her three sons. “When you give your son to another woman, even though it’s wonderful, it’s not the same as giving your son to God,” she said. Because God’s love is perfect there is nothing more a mother could ask for her son, Cathy said. The ordination will be something of a reunion. Born in Syekston, Missouri in 1977, Joe was baptized Catholic, but he never really got to know his Godmother. His family moved to Norman in 1981. His father, Mike, was working for Haliburton and that meant living in Oklahoma during the height of the oil boom. Joe’s Godmother, Anna Voelker also moved away with her family and while she and Cathy kept in touch over the years, distance kept the families from spending any real time with one another. But the woman who repeated the baptismal vows while holding the infant Joe Irwin in her arms has been asked to serve as a reader at his Mass of Ordination. Growing up, Joe was pretty much the same as the other boys he spent time with. He loved sports, especially football. He also taught himself to play the guitar, as did his other two brothers, William and Benjamin. He was always drawn to the Church, although he did not seem overly obsessed with it. Joe said he remembers listening to Father Ken Kulinski and paying attention to his homilies. Looking back he thinks that might be a bit unusual- a child of six or seven that engrossed in what a priest has to say during Mass. He was an altar server, even through high school and he loved spending time at the Catholic Youth Summer Camp. He landed a job there his freshman year in high school and went back to help each summer after. It wasn’t until Joe went away to college that he seriously started thinking about the possibility of becoming a priest. Joe wanted to attend Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan. The school intrigued him, but with tuition alone running some $14,000 per year, the Norman High School grad knew as much as his parents would love to send him, there was little chance without some hefty financial assistance. That’s when he got the idea to market his football ability. Joe made a highlight tape of his two years as a starting offensive lineman for the Norman Tigers and sent it to the football coach at Benedictine. Two days later, on the Feast Day of Saint Scholastica, as his mother recalls, he was offered a scholarship to attend Benedictine College and play football. “I know it was God at work,” Cathy Irwin said. “Saint Scholastica and Saint Benedict were twins and now we have Pope Benedict.” She says the signs pointing to her son’s calling to the priesthood are clearer now as she reflects. It was probably around his junior year in college when she noticed her son beginning to change. “He would come home from school and talk about his subjects, but the one he talked about first and the longest was theology. He loved to talk about theology.” Joe said his mother was right to notice the change in him around that time because that’s when he started seriously thinking about the seminary. It started after he made a trip to Rome as part of the Benedictine Men’s Choir. “Rome was incredible,” he said. “All these cardinals and bishops walking around the streets.” He attended a Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II and that may have sealed the deal. “One day I sat down at the computer and wrote an email to my parents,” he said. “I basically poured my heart out telling them why I wanted to become a priest. I asked them to keep it quiet because I wasn’t ready to tell everyone else.” Two days later, Joe Irwin got a telephone call from Archbishop Beltran. “We’ll have to talk about this because I don’t remember him telling me to keep it quiet,” Cathy said with a laugh. “How else was he going to get into seminary?” Cathy works in the Archdiocesan Office of Stewardship and Development and with the Catholic Foundation of Oklahoma. Her office is directly across the hall from the Office of the Archbishop. Joe remembers his conversation with Archbishop Beltran. “He told me to try seminary for one year, that’s all he asked ‘try it for one year.”’ The first year at Conception Seminary in Missouri was great, everything was new and exciting. The second year some doubts and questions started to creep into the process, but Joe said looking back that was a natural occurrence. “Seminary is so wonderful, it gives you the tools to deal with questions and doubts.” He was ordained a deacon at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary near Philadelphia, Pa. Joe’s parents and his grandparents attended. Five years ago, Joe’s father, Mike, converted to the Catholic faith. “He was raised a Lutheran,” Cathy said. “But he said he wanted to take Communion as a family so he converted.” On June 4, at the Saturday evening Vigil Mass at Saint Joseph Parish in Norman, Father Joseph Michael Irwin will consecrate the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ for his whole family.
|
