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| Fr. Aaron Dean Vinduska | |
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A vocation story can be seen from many points of view
and never completely express the mystery and full extent of
the experience of God’s call. There are many elements that
He alone can relate, completely unknown to me.
The Beginning
I was born in rural Kansas and
grew up on a farm just a few miles from
my parish town of Pilsen. Pilsen hardly deserves to be
on the map if it weren’t for its beautiful neo-gothic
church that dominates the surrounding countryside. It is also home
of the Korean War hero, Chaplain Emil Kapaun, whose cause
for beatification is presently being reviewed. I am the youngest
of three. My parents were always close and loving and
exemplar in their piety. Sunday mass and monthly confession was
the norm although the latter was always disguised as a
family outing to the movies. I was also very close
to my sister who has always been supportive. My relationship
with my brother though was a bit more distant. Understandably
he is 7 years older and we did not share
much in common. However he too was instrumental in a
positive way which at the time I didn’t appreciate much.
I sometimes thought he considered me lazy, fat, and soft.
All three adjectives had some truth behind it. He would
occasionally voice these observations but more often his silence was
deafening. He tried to make me more responsible, active and
strong-willed. If it were not for his efforts I probably
would not have persevered in my vocation during the difficult
moments. A few key phrases he would say (usually under
his breath) continue to ring in my ear even today.
What was an annoyance years ago has become a debt
of gratitude today.
A quick overview of my childhood
does reveal a few interesting details that may have led
to my openness to God’s call. At a very tender
age I learned to be adventurous so that by the
age of three, I was already hanging off the roof
of the house (literally), by five I knew how to
get to my grandparent´s house five miles away on a
tricycle and by seven was singing the praises of God
swinging back and forth on the top of my favorite
tree. At nine for some strange reason I was present
at a Protestant revival conference and to the great dismay
of my parents walked up in front of everyone for
the altar call. After being led to a back room
a youth minister asked what denomination I was from to
which I proudly bellowed, “Roman Catholic!” A few weeks before
catechism classes started for my eighth grade year they still
did not have anyone to teach it. I offered to
do it myself to the parish priest who wasn’t sure
what to make of it.
A singular event in
my childhood that allowed me to see Mary’s protective hand
in my youth was when I discovered I was mortally
allergic to bee stings. I had been stung several times
before in my youth, but on August 14, 1990 the
reaction was far different. Fifteen minutes after getting stung I
was unconscious and on the floor of the local medical
clinic. The amazing thing behind this episode was that, providentially,
my parents were at home on a Tuesday morning and
that the doctor at the clinic had stayed an extra
forty minutes after their midday closing time just chatting with
the nurses as if expecting something to happen. The date
has always been easy to remember as it was the
vigil to the feast of the Assumption. This was also
the event that gave my parents the faith to say
yes four years later.
Even though I went to
public school – there were simply no other options in
a 40 mile radius – I had a great group
of friends. Some things were almost laughable for us students
when the problems of the city public schools would actually
happen at our small school: bomb threats and guns (hunting
guns left on the gun rack in the back of
the pick-up). Other things though were real such as drugs,
alcohol and sex. Nonetheless, the school was rather sports oriented.
My class in particular was big on football. By fourth
or fifth grade we were already practicing football plays during
recess out on the playground. We were determined to win
the state championship. In many ways this determination helped keep
everyone in line. We were always looking after each other
making sure everyone was making the grade and keeping out
of trouble. Being a small school, we needed everyone to
be present on the team to stand a chance. Our
first season though in junior high was a poor, 2-4
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| Fr. Aaron preaches to a group of kids from Club Conquest. | |
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record. The next year we went 5-1 only barely losing
to a school three times our size. Before the games
we always gathered for prayer. Being a public school, the
coaches could not lead the prayer so we had to
and wanted to.
The Encounter
In October of 1993,
several families got together at the house of one of
my best friends, David Rziha. Seminarians from a new religious
congregation were going to stop by and introduce themselves. While
one of them spoke to the parents the other seminarian
started showing pictures of the seminary to us kids. During
the course of this explanation, I supposed that seminarian had
invited us to a retreat for Holy Week. Perhaps the
invite was through our parents, but what I do remember
is about a week later, at school, David came up
to me and asked me if I wanted to go
on a retreat. I agreed half-heartedly but also asked where
it was going to be. At the response of, “New
Hampshire,” the wry look on my face surely discouraged him.
The prospect of two farm boys who had never flown
before, spending a week in Boston and missing school seemed
a ridiculous proposal at best. Flying meant too much money,
Boston was synonymous to Timbuktu, and school was nearly as
sacred as attending Sunday mass. To give an idea, my
brother made it all the way to his senior year
in high school before missing his first day of school.
Needless to say, the following week we had tickets for
Boston.
The shock of being let out of the
house for an unmerited vacation quickly gave way to excitement.
I never thought of the possible reasons why our parents
made the sacrifices to let us go on this retreat.
Priesthood was definitely not on my mind. The retreat was
to be held at a high school seminary run by
the same congregation from which those seminarians, that went to
Kansas in October, came from. We were going to be
joined by another thirty or so kids from around the
country. Upon arriving to this school, we went straight to
the chapel to thank Our Lord for the safe trip.
The very first impact of the trip was entering that
chapel: sixty guys, my age, were kneeling before the Blessed
Sacrament in adoration. I had never gone on a retreat
before, but this sight helped me realize that this experience
was not going to be like anything else I had
ever done before.
The format of the retreat was
simple. We did what the high school seminarians did. Every
once in a while we would separate for a talk
or meditation to delve deeper into the sacred mysteries we
were living during those days of Holy Week. I would
like to say they were perfectly normal guys, but it
wouldn’t be wholly true. They possessed an interior happiness that
radiated in acts of charity and sacrifice. The charity they
lived was contagious. We were eagerly doing chores that, at
home, would have begged a handsome allowance. Furthermore, they took
their preparation for the priesthood seriously from the dedication to
their studies, to the offering of the daily chores around
the house for the salvation of souls. Even though many
of the new friends I was making kept asking if
I was going to come back that summer, I always
said no. It never really donned on me what they
meant by that question until the last day of the
retreat when my friend David confided to me that he
was seriously considering becoming a priest.
The Response
The
weeks passed by after the retreat and I was continually
confronted by that question: Are you going to come back?
I was pondering this question, while staring out at the
stars from the car window on the way back from
visiting my brother at college, when my mother asked me
a question. I do not know what she asked. I
even doubt I heard her as the only thing I
remember was my father slightly raising his voice warning me
that I should answer my mother when she asked a
question. Once again, I preferred to ignore them. They were
not to be shunned. My father, once again, implored why
I had been so quiet and removed the past several
weeks. I simply looked at him through the rearview mirror
and said, “Friday night, nine o’clock, I’ll talk.” My parents
held their peace but with mounting concern.
Very
punctually at 9:00 p.m. that Friday, I sat down with
my father at the kitchen table. I found it very
difficult to formulate words in my mouth. The awkwardness of
the whole scene was daunting. Finally, after a few prolonged
moments of silence, I told him, “I think I want
to become a priest.” A weight was lifted from within
but apparently landed square on my father’s back as he
slowly edged forward in his chair by some mysterious weight
of uncertainty of having understood the statement that had just
been uttered in his presence. Another prolonged silence ensued as
I thought my father might just fall out of his
chair. The tension was finally broken when he fell back
on his chair and slightly laughed to himself. He seemed
to have registered correctly the statement and was pleased.
My parents have always been supportive of my vocation
as well as my sister, without which the journey would
have been next to impossible. Even my brother has warmed
to the idea of a priest in the family. That
very summer, I returned to the discernment course and entered
the school at the age of 14. It was a
sacrifice for many but God has rewarded it with peace
and interior joy which I have always taken as the
fulfillment of His promise of following His will.
FR AARON
DEAN VINDUSKA was born on November 16, 1979, in Hillsboro,
Kansas. He is the youngest of Donald and Regina Vinduska’s
three children. He attended Center Elementary School in Lost Springs,
Kansas and Center Junior High School in Lincolnville, Kansas. In
1994, in his freshman year of high school, he entered
the Immaculate Conception Apostolic School, Center Harbor, New Hampshire, from
where he graduated three years later. He made his first
profession in Dublin, Ireland in 1999 and did a year
of studies in classical humanities in Salamanca, Spain. He earned
his bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 2002 and master’s degree
in 2008. He also has his bachelor’s degree in theology
and is presently working on his master’s degree in dogmatic
theology at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome. During
the years between his degrees in philosophy he spent four
years doing youth work in Seattle, Washington and Alberta, Canada.
Los testimonios vocacionales de los legionarios
de Cristo que recibieron la ordenación sacerdotal en el año
2011 han sido publicados en el libro "Dios lo
da todo". |
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