I first saw John Paul II at World Youth Day in Denver. It was August of 1993, and I was set to begin my junior year of high school. The five hour drive from my home in Casper, Wyoming meant that hundreds from my parish could easily attend. During the Vigil before the closing Mass, I remember being surrounded by friends; we were nearly as interested in meeting other young people as we were in seeing the Pope. Still, I distinctly remember the Holy Father’s stern call to resist the culture of death. The challenge seemed a bit harsh. His words aggressively confronted my American culture and, though my pride was stung, his message stayed with me until I better understood its truth.
Four years later I attended World Youth Day in Paris. The preceding year I had joined a Marian prayer group at my college, and my renewed faith prompted me to venture overseas to see John Paul II once again. I recall the Word Youth Day theme taken from the first chapter of John: “Teacher, where are you staying? Come and see.” In Paris I experienced for the first time the rich patrimony of the Church in Europe. I visited Notre Dame and Rue De Bac and even prayed with St. Therese of Lisieux whose ark-like reliquary had taken her far outside her original cloister walls. At the closing Mass, John Paul II announced that St. Therese was to be made a Doctor of the Church! I felt particular excitement, both because I had just prayed with her and because it would occur on October 19th, my father’s birthday.
The day after the final Mass I passed through a now quiet Paris to make one last stop. Entering Sacre Coeur, the hilltop Basilica where St. Therese had once prayed as a girl, I knelt in front of the exposed Blessed Sacrament and made a deal with God. I simply and emotionally told Him, “If you want me to be a priest, you have to take care of the details.” It was a prayer of uncertainty tinged with fear, but at its core was trust in His providence.
Graduating in 1999 with a Chemistry degree from Notre Dame, I pursued an interest in youth ministry and took a job at a parish in Douglas, Wyoming. The constant activity constituted on-the-job training, and the young pastor taught me volumes as he poured his life into the parish.
That fall, A Jubilee Year pilgrimage took form. In short order I was helping to lead a group of 120 through France and Italy en route to join the youth of the world and the Pope—this time in Rome. Amidst an estimated two million at the closing Mass, I knew I was part of the universal Church assembled at the feet of Peter’s successor. John Paul asked the young people of the world to come to Rome for the Jubilee World Youth Day, and the world had responded.
In the months following, vocational questions surfaced frequently, and after an 8 day retreat in December, I ended a multi-year relationship to better discern my potential priestly call. During the spring months, I gradually realized the true freedom God had given me. God was not trying to strong-arm me into seminary. He was asking me very gently if I would begin to tread the path to priesthood.
The summer after my first year of seminary, I was assigned to assist with another World Youth Day Pilgrimage for my Diocese. Though Toronto 2002 was my fourth World Youth Day, it was my first as a seminarian. During the closing Mass I was touched as never before by these words of John Paul II. I knew then he was our father; he was my father. He is a father dearly missed.

by Steven Titus
Diocese of Cheyene
Class of 2008