By Alora Peters, Editor-in-Chief
On May 21, the Diocese of St. Petersburg will witness the ordination of two men to the Catholic priesthood—including, notably, Saint Leo University alumnus Zachary “Zach” Brasseur, who graduated from Saint Leo in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in history and a minor in theology.
Brasseur’s ordination to the priesthood is the culmination of a lifelong journey of prayer, study, work, and discernment. More recently, this journey has become a time of intense preparation, as Brasseur concludes his fifth year of study at the St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary.
“A lot of my classes have been very practical: learning how to hear confession, learning to celebrate Mass and the sacraments, even a class on spiritual direction, counseling… things that priests do every day,” explained Brasseur.
One of Brasseur’s challenges in his final months of seminary has been anticipating the transition from a seminarian to a priest.
“A lot of it is learning to see myself as a priest,” he said. “I’ve been in seminary so long, which is a very particular way of living that’s not really like anything else. I’m a student in school, but I’m also being evaluated all the time.”
Brasseur’s time of preparation has also been a time of prayer and reflection on his new role in the Church.
“Some things are challenging, some things are really consoling,” Brasseur said. “I’m trying not to focus too much on the details… Couples who are getting married go through the same thing—not getting too worried about the flower arrangements, the place settings, the things like that, and actually focusing on the sacrament I am about to receive.”
While Brasseur’s ordination is fast approaching, his vocational discernment began when he was around seven or eight years old, preparing for First Holy Communion. It was then, Brasseur noted, that he first began to be exposed to the teachings and life of the Church.
“Priesthood had always been on the table, growing up… it was just always there,” said Brasseur. “At that time… I was blessed with just having a lot of great priests around, who were happy and joyful and loved being priests. It was just a good influence. It was the right kind of environment to be able to see the priesthood as a real option and as a good option.”
Brasseur continued to experience the call to the priesthood, especially during high school and during his time at Saint Leo.
“At Saint Leo, I studied history because I was afraid that, if I studied theology, I would want to become a priest,” said Brasseur. “At some point, I took an Intro to Theology class and realized, ‘Oh, I actually like this,’ and picked up a minor.”
Relationships with faculty from Saint Leo’s theology department, with members of University Ministry, and with student missionaries at Camp Covecrest—where Brasseur volunteered over multiple summers—all continued to influence his journey.
“All these relationships, these friendships helped to create the environment where I could see the priesthood as a real possibility,” said Brasseur. Towards the end of college, Brasseur solidified his decision and applied to seminary during his final year at Saint Leo.
For the first two to four years, seminarians study philosophy to lay the groundwork for later studies in advanced theology. Brasseur found that his education at Saint Leo made an impact on his education in seminary.
“Without a historical context, philosophy can be hard to grasp, especially if you are coming from business or engineering or something like that,” said Brasseur. “A historical consciousness made philosophy a lot easier. Studying history helped a lot.”
Brasseur’s Saint Leo education did not just prepare him in academic ways, but in personal ways as well.
“I think an overall thing that I received from Saint Leo was just that chance to grow and become myself,” said Brasseur. “That environment of a university, where people are different from me, where they think differently from me, have different backgrounds, beliefs… I could figure out more and more who I was, in the middle of that, and that leads to a deeper relationship with Christ.”
Reflecting back on his experience at Saint Leo, however, Brasseur says that the most important part from his time at the university were the connections he was able to make with others.
“I think it just comes down to relationships,” said Brasseur. “In history, Dr. (Douglas) Astolfi was really one of the most encouraging people. I remember sitting in his office one day, and everyone who came into the office to see him, he would tell them I was going to seminary. He was just like this really proud dad, and that just always stuck with me.”
Other important connections Brasseur made were with Drs. Thomas Humphries, Stephen Okey, Michael Tkacik, and Randall Woodard—all faculty members from the department of philosophy, theology, and religion—and with Matthew Cranley, a former Campus Minister. The Benedictine community of Saint Leo was also highly influential for Brasseur.
“I can’t forget about the monks! I learned how to love prayer at the Abbey, just going to pray morning prayer with them, going to Mass,” he said. “Having that place of prayer was really beautiful and super helpful. Between the Abbey and Saint Jude Chapel…. there was a lot of prayer in those two places. I’m really grateful for that.”
While Brasseur was impacted by many of the people that he met at Saint Leo, he also left his own lasting legacy at Saint Leo’s university campus in the form of the Prayer & Mindfulness community.
“There were a few of us on campus who wanted to live in community with likeminded people who wanted to pray and wanted to grow in our relationship with the Lord,” said Brasseur. “We heard about other Catholic universities, like Notre Dame, where every building has a chapel and Mass multiple times a day. We knew that would be a reach, but we wanted, at least, a community focused on prayer.”
During this time, Residence Life had been experimenting with different residential communities where students with similar interests—such as a shared interest in health and fitness, for example—could come together to live, learn, and work as a community.
“It is safe to say that Zach is one of a handful of students without whom the Prayer & Mindfulness [community]would not have been successful in those first years,” said Humphries, who serves as the faculty mentor to the group and was another of the founders. “I don’t think many current students know the story of the community and his role in it, but when they meet him and hear the story, I think it resonates deeply with their own experiences of Saint Leo.”
The Prayer & Mindfulness community reserves space in one of the residential halls for student members, who gather for prayer and reflection as a group and, additionally, take a religion class together. Building the community brought both happiness and challenges for Brasseur, who served as the first Resident Assistant of the floor.
“It was hard to get good candidates,” he said. “We had a mix of people who were really committed to it, and others who wanted the nice, first floor Apartment 4 rooms. There were moments of real joy in the class with Dr. Humphries, real growth, and desire for prayer. There were other times it was just college students who were being college students.”
The Prayer & Mindfulness community remains on Saint Leo’s campus to this day and continues to draw students interested in communal prayer and study.
“I remember, at times, feeling disappointed, mostly with myself, but I can look back on it now… [as]my first venture into evangelization,” said Brasseur. “I’m glad I was able to be a part of what got that going.”
Brasseur hopes that students living in the Prayer & Mindfulness community remain optimistic, despite the challenges.
“Don’t be discouraged,” he said. “Really embrace it for all that it is—not wishing that it was something else, or bemoaning what it could be. Be in the moment and see how God is present in there. You don’t know how much good can come from it.”
“I would encourage anyone who feels that the Lord is calling them to something, to just do it,” he added as a final piece of advice to students. “If you’re with the Lord, He’ll show you what you’re supposed to do. The foundation of that is prayer. We can’t know what the Lord wants us to do without prayer.”
Following his ordination, which will take place at 11A.M. on Saturday at the Cathedral of Saint Jude in St. Petersburg, Brasseur will begin his first assignment as a parish priest at Our Lady of Lourdes in Dunedin.
