Father Michael Reding

Father Michael Reding

Father Michael Reding, pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle in Minneapolis, recently recalled one of the most memorable experiences in his 25 years of priesthood: celebrating six sacraments in just over an hour. A non-Catholic man married to a Catholic woman for 35 years asked for help with the process for the couple to be married in the Church.

Their “favor of the faith” case required canonical processes that took two years, Father Reding said. Once complete, Father Reding baptized him, confirmed him, celebrated reconciliation, celebrated Mass where the man received the Eucharist for the first time, validated his marriage and anointed him because, during the two-year wait, the man was diagnosed with cancer. Recently, Father Reding celebrated the man’s funeral Mass.

While the man’s wife may have been his biggest motivation, Father Reding believes the husband found a side of the Church that wasn’t pushing him away, but instead, was welcoming, receptive and caring.

Most days, a pastor’s influence on a community and people’s faith is one that is gentle and nearly imperceptible, Father Reding said. Aside from a mission preacher visiting or a retreat that’s “kind of a mountaintop experience,” a pastor’s influence is much more gentle and ultimately deeper and more substantial, he said. Having a relationship with a community over years “and hearing how you’ve really shaped people’s vocabulary about how they speak about their faith” — hearing his own words and how a pastor can fundamentally help shape people’s understanding and image of God, and who God is for them and their relationship with God — is what makes being a pastor the most satisfying, Father Reding said. “Being able to have that ongoing, gentle but deeply transformative relationship with them.”

Father Reding, 58, who has also led about 10 pilgrimages, with seven or eight to the Holy Land, described the transformation of people’s faith he has witnessed when they encounter “the person of Jesus” in the places where he lived. “Jesus was born here,” Father Reding said. “Jesus lived here. Jesus died here. Jesus multiplied loaves and fishes here. Jesus preached here. The way in which it makes faith come alive for people is incomparable, and incredibly satisfying.”

Before his ordination, Father Reding remembers being asked by seminary leadership if he had interest in some type of specialized ministry, or continuing studies to someday teach at the seminary, or work at the archdiocesan chancery. Instead, he said, he is a generalist who loves the breadth of things that he gets to do as a pastor.

“That’s really where my heart is,” he said. “That’s where I want to be. And, of course, as we’ve had fewer and fewer priests, it’s been the place where we really need guys.”

As a younger priest, Father Reding said, he didn’t fully appreciate how consuming it is to prepare for preaching. “I think it’s the most important thing I do all week,” he said. “It’s the part of my ministry that will reach the largest number of people, so it deserves a lot of time, but it also ends up for me demanding tremendous emotional energy.” He said each week he fears finding the right words, but in the end, “it’s the most satisfying thing that I do.”