At one time, Deacon James Bernard was on a track to teach English as a second language, with the thought of possibly going to another country.

“I had a college roommate from Japan, and several friends from Japan and other countries,” he said. “They were encouraging me to be an ESL teacher.”

That was in the late 1990s, when Deacon Bernard was going to St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud. He went back to earn a master’s degree there and also got a teaching license. He taught ESL in the Twin Cities for eight years after that, all the while thinking about the priesthood, the second option for his life that he had been considering.

Those thoughts were triggered by random people who mentioned the priesthood to him.

“There were people who wouldn’t normally say that to me, like one girl that I knew from high school,” said Deacon Bernard, 42, who grew up in New Brighton and went to St. Anthony High School in St. Anthony. “She was a couple grades younger and I didn’t really know her all that well. And, she said, ‘Oh, I could see you being a priest.’ And, I just thought, ‘That’s kind of interesting.’”

He couldn’t get the priesthood out of his mind, eventually thinking that “the Lord was maybe using these people as messengers.”

During two years of working for his uncle at a restaurant and the eight years as an ESL teacher, Deacon Bernard continued hearing the call toward priesthood.

“I was a perpetual discerner,” he said with a laugh. “And I realized, throughout that whole time, the Lord was always poking at me. There were times where I shut that out and just tried to do my own thing and avoid that calling. But, the Lord never stopped poking at me and pursuing that. And so, I just came to the realization that I couldn’t live with the regret of never having given it (priesthood) a shot.”

A priest at the Newman Center at St. Cloud State, Father Kevin Anderson, talked with him many times about the priesthood and encouraged him to pursue seminary formation. Finally, in 2015, Deacon Bernard enrolled at The St. Paul Seminary and began with pre-theology coursework.

“I came to the seminary pretty certain that the Lord wanted me to be a priest,” he said. “A lot of my discernment had already happened. … I felt that this was the place that I was called to be.”

As he looks back, he sees value in his work experiences before coming to the seminary, especially teaching ESL. Students included those born in foreign countries as well as special education students in local school districts who struggled with English. He also worked with students who had emotional and/or behavioral issues such as autism.

“I think it’s always valuable to have had interactions with different people of different backgrounds,” said Deacon Bernard, who noted experiences teaching ESL with the Missionaries of Charity and with the local Karen population, as well as working with the Latino population at St. Henry in Monticello, his teaching parish. “Having had experience interacting with people who maybe don’t speak perfect English, just being able to understand them, understand where they’re coming from a little bit, I found to be valuable. Even though I set down that career to pursue the priesthood, the Lord continues to use those experiences and those things that I’ve learned.”

Deacon Bernard said he’s not fluent in Spanish, but he knows it well enough to have a desire to do Latino ministry after his ordination, something he has formally asked to do. When he brought up this desire to the clergy assignment board, he said “they expressed that it was a big need right now.”

“I’m grateful” about the opportunity to minister to Spanish-speakers at some point, he said. “I’ve always enjoyed working with other cultures. You don’t do it perfectly, and my Spanish isn’t perfect. But, the Lord uses our scraps, the Lord uses our limited abilities to do great things. So, I’m very excited for that.”

At the same time, Deacon Bernard realizes these are challenging times to be ordained a priest, having spent the last year of his formation in a global pandemic, and having lived through the fallout of the death of George Floyd and the ensuing trial and conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. He was ordained a transitional deacon a year ago with only a limited number of people attending, and he will enter ministry with racial issues on many people’s minds.

How will he address it?

“I think the conversation needs to be centered around our identity as children of God,” he said. “Our faith seems pretty countercultural right now. But, I think it’ll be key to preach the truth in a pastoral way and walk with people.”