Scripture, rosary and the True Presence lead seminarian to priesthood
May 19, 2022
Jason Lee will experience the last major step before priestly ordination on June 10 when he is ordained a transitional deacon at his home parish of St. Boniface in Waukee.
Lee is a young convert, having been raised Methodist. He came into full communion with the Catholic Church when he was a senior in high school.
He could have stopped there and become a lifelong, faithful Catholic. But Scripture, the rosary and belief in the True Presence in the Eucharist led Lee to understand that God called him to serve people through ordained ministry.
He started reading Scripture and noted theologians back when he was preparing for confirmation in the Methodist church. The readings opened his eyes.
“I would credit the Holy Spirit to put on my heart to really sit down and read the Scriptures and know what I was about to profess as a Methodist,” he said. “I just started a journey of reading Genesis to Revelation.
“It was there that I would say I encountered, first in the Old Testament, God’s love for his people Israel, but then when I started reading the New Testament, I encountered Jesus Christ. I started to see the whole role of the Son in the Trinity and how he came to redeem man and save man from sin and death, and that’s when I really encountered God’s love in a more concrete way.”
Lee’s pastor took note and started bringing him along to home visits and to leadership conferences.
“I would say that’s what spearheaded this vocation or this call to ministry: encountering Jesus Christ in the Scriptures and desiring others to know the love of Jesus Christ as well,” Lee said.
At this point, he was a sophomore in high school and encountered Catholic classmates. In one class, students had to bring in something that was important to them. He brought sports gear and a Bible; a classmate brought a rosary.
He didn’t know what it was, so he did a simple Google search, where he learned that it’s a beautiful prayer used to meditate on the life of Jesus. He decided to get one.
Lee went to a local store, where he found a do-it-yourself rosary making kit and put it together.
He started to pray with it.
“Praying the rosary was a different way to encounter Jesus outside of reading the Scriptures,” he said.
Conflict within the Methodist Church, particularly the way it votes on theological principles, prompted Lee to consider other faith traditions.
“On a whim, I wanted to check out a Catholic Mass. I would say I was a little nervous walking in. I had no idea what you do in Mass,” he said.
He was 17 at the time, sat in the back and was grateful for a couple next to him who gave him a card from the pew with responses to the prayers.
“The turning point for me at that Mass was noticing everyone kneeling during the consecration of the host and also the wine,” he said. “Something in me told me that there was something more in what I was seeing on the altar. There was something more than bread and wine there, and that’s what stirred my own heart. I think that’s when I made the connection of what I learned about the Eucharist – that it was Jesus’ body and blood – that’s when it went from my head to my heart.”
He attended Iowa State University, got involved in the local Catholic church, and continued to feel a desire to preach and teach the gospel. He entered seminary while in college, attending the St. John Vianney Seminary at University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.
After his diaconate ordination, Lee will serve in the summer at St. Michael Parish in Harlan. As a deacon, he will be able to baptize, marry, preach and preside at a funeral service. He will not be able to celebrate a Mass until his priestly ordination, which is expected in the summer of 2023.