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Archives Deacon looks ahead to ordination, back on growth of his vocation
“I can’t imagine doing anything else’

Sept. 21, 2016

By Kristina Dean
Staff writer

CANTON - Looking back at his career choices, Deacon Todd Thibault saw God’s hand in his life long before heThibault made the decision to become a priest.

The Colchester, Vermont ,native, now a transitional deacon at St. Mary’s Church in Canton, said he felt a call early in life around fifth or sixth grade. Because he was extremely shy, he didn’t pursue it until he was in his early 20’s.

At that time he spoke with his pastor, Father Richard LaValley, but decided to step away because he didn’t feel ready.

Much later - after he’d worked for the Diocese of Burlington for ten years and was taking night classes for a business administration degree - an offhand comment made by the vicar general made him pause.

“He came and congratulated me and said they should pop me into the seminary and finish me off,” the deacon said, who laughed it off.

Later, he mentioned it to the director of stewardship and development who said that made sense to him.

“I was all shook up” Deacon Thibault said. “I went home and had a sleepless night. I thought working for the diocese was all God was asking of me. This kept me up for most of two nights,”

Deacon Thibault consulted his former pastor, now Msgr. LaValley, who was very excited, and had been praying for some 18 years for him to become a priest.

He also consulted his parents, who weren’t surprised.

“My father said it couldn’t hurt to try,” the deacon said. “No one that I told found it to be very surprising. Quite a few people asked me why I never became a priest or thought about it.”

Finding this decision nerve wracking, he prayed to ask if God wanted him to go into the seminary.

“A huge feeling of peace came over me,” he said. “That’s when I knew that I needed to find out what this was about,”

“It didn’t take long for me when I was in the seminary to figure it out,” Deacon Thibault said. “I was at Holy Hour praying. There had been talk that day, it was 2012, about all sorts of the end of the world stuff. I prayed, ‘Oh Lord, please don’t let me die before I’m ordained.”

That made him pause, wondering where that thought came from.

“I realized, that’s what I was called for. That’s when I knew he was calling me. I’ve never looked back since,” he said.

Originally, the deacon received his associate's degree in hotel/motel management from Champlain College in Burlington, Vt.

He worked in the hospitality industry for 15 years before working for the Burlington Diocese as a case director for the office of tribunal, then eventually as a Bishop’s Fund coordinator for the office of stewardship and development before receiving his bachelor's degree.

Being a quiet person, Deacon Thibault said standing in front of people was one of his “big hangups.”

During his seminary time, he took extra scripture courses for this reason. He worried how he’d speak in front of a congregation.

Also while in the seminary, he wrote reflections about himself and his journey that helped him to come to a realization that God had been preparing him for the priesthood all along.

“He was preparing me, pushing me outside my comfort zone, in jobs where I had to deal with the public and do presentations,” he said. “It was pushing me out there where I wouldn’t have naturally gone on my own.”
With his ordination to be a priest for the Diocese of Ogdensburg approaching on October 8, the deacon said he looks forward to sacraments like baptism and first communion.

“I want to celebrate with families and bring them in, to open up that faith and the wonder of God’s creation,” he said. “At this point, I can’t imagine myself doing anything else.”

The oldest of three boys, Deacon Thibault said he spent his first two years of theology study at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton, Mass. He said eventually it became clear that the Diocese of Burlington was not where he was called to be.

The Diocese of Ogdensburg is a good fit, he said.

Besides thanking his parents,the deacon praised the late Father  George Maroun, former pastor of St. James Church in Carthage where Deacon Thibault spent his pastoral year.

“It was a wonderful year in Carthage. I’d moved from a diocese in a home that I always knew and lived. But I was always made to feel so welcome in Carthage, Deacon Thibault said. “The parishioners made me feel at home from day one.”


Thibault
Photo by Tom Semeraro

Deacon Todd Thibault sits at the edge of the lake at Camp Guggenheim in Saranac Lake during a diocesan retreat for seminarians in July. He will be ordained a priest for the Diocese of Ogdensburg Oct. 8 at St. Mary’s Cathedral.

 

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