Back in junior high, Deacon John Utecht experienced “a powerful experience of God’s love and mercy” on a day he went to adoration and confession.
“I just really experienced God’s love,” he said, and in response, Deacon Utecht said, “Lord, I want to live for you.”
His faith continued to slowly grow, he said. He considered seminaries places where men can further deepen their prayer life and relationship with the Lord, which he found attractive. But it wasn’t until he served for a year with NET Ministries after high school that he considered priesthood, describing his time on a NET team a powerful experience. Based in West St. Paul, NET Ministries trains and sends groups of young adults around the United States to led retreats for middle- and high-school-age youth.
During Deacon Utecht’s year on NET, he developed a daily prayer life on his own and learned to “walk with the Lord” every day, throughout the whole day, he said. Seeing how the Lord worked through him and the other members of his NET team in the lives of the youth they were serving helped him see how joyful it is to spend one’s life serving God’s people, he said.
Through being a missionary and serving God’s people, “I really came to slowly start to hear the Lord inviting me to go to seminary,” he said.
Deacon Utecht, 27, is among five men who will be ordained priests for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul 10 a.m. May 28.
He remembers one day in eucharistic adoration he had a powerful experience where he heard the Lord call him, saying, “I want you to go to seminary.” And in the following 24 hours, several people mentioned to him that they thought that’s where he should go.
So, he entered St. John Vianney College Seminary at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul the next year. After his college education and formation, he continued on at The St. Paul Seminary across campus. As time went on, “I’ve just come to really love the priesthood and become very excited to be a priest,” he said.
The most impactful experience of his time at the seminary was the spiritual formation received, he said, “the ways seminary teachers inform us to love the Lord and to know his love for us.”
At his teaching parish of four years, St. Michael in St. Michael, Deacon Utecht has been immersed in getting to know the parish and parishioners, helping teach faith formation and holding other responsibilities, which he said have included greater focus on administrative and leadership roles the past two years.
Deacon Utecht, the son of Deacon Joe and Margaret Utecht and a member of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Hastings, said faith was always important to his family members, who are supportive of his vocation. That family includes three sisters, one brother, aunts, uncles and godparents. “I’ve really been blessed to be surrounded by people who have always been supportive,” he said, including the good fortune to have “such faithful parents.” Deacon Utecht’s father was ordained a permanent deacon for the archdiocese in 2019.
As he anticipates priesthood, Deacon John Utecht said he most looks forward to “getting to celebrate the sacraments” and the privilege of being the instrument that the Lord uses to bring grace to people.
“I’m just so excited to be a priest and feel really grateful that the Lord has called me to this life,” he said. “I hope to be a good, holy priest that is able to serve people well and bring them closer to God, bring them into heaven.”
He also is grateful for the fraternity he’s shared with fellow seminarians, “and the witness of the priests and faculty” at the seminary.
“There’s a lot of guys that I’ll stay in touch with and continue to be good brothers with, I’m sure, for the rest of my life,” Deacon Utecht said. “I’m just really grateful for those relationships and friendships,” some of which have lasted eight years so far.
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