June 7, 2002

Diverse interests can't keep
deacon from priesthood

By Mary Ann Wyand

Mystery, magic and music interest Deacon Justin Martin.

The mysteries of the Catholic faith are of special interest to the 25-year-old seminarian whose hobbies include playing the piano and performing magic tricks. He thought about becoming a physician, musician or actor before answering God’s call to study for the priesthood.

A member of St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Bloomington, Martin will be ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein on June 29 at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis.

Deacons Harold Rightor and Christiaan Kappes also will be ordained that day.

Martin will be the youngest priest in the archdiocese when he begins his first ministry assignment as associate pastor of St. Luke Parish in Indianapolis.

He will celebrate his first Mass at noon on June 30 at St. Charles Borromeo Church.

“My goal is to be the best parish priest I can be,” he said. “I know that, with God’s never-ending help, this is possible. Another one of my goals is to be a witness of the Gospel to all I meet.

“I have great hope in today’s youth, mainly because I am one of them,” Martin said. “I want to be an example to them of what it means to serve Christ and his Church.”

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Martin said he is looking forward to talking with young people about vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

He has three relatives who are priests. Msgr. Frederick Easton is his uncle and his “greatest example” of the priestly life. Father Robert Mazzola and Benedictine Father Gavin Barnes are cousins.

“I think that being a role model for the youth today is a great calling,” Martin said. “I believe that one of the reasons God has called me to the priesthood is to be a good example to the youth and lead them as I, hopefully, lead everyone I meet to greater holiness and closeness to God through the sacraments and by being an example for them. To act “In persona Christi”—“In the person of Christ”—is a tall order, and I am ready with the help of God to do exactly that.”

Msgr. Easton, vicar judicial for the archdiocese’s Metropolitan Tribunal, is understandably proud of his nephew.

“He is a young man who, unlike his uncle, is very extroverted and hardly knows a stranger,” Msgr. Easton said. “He has no difficulty talking with very high ecclesiastics, including Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger [prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith], who he met at the Vatican in Rome.

“Justin is a very sincere young man who always wants to do the right thing,” Msgr. Easton said. “He studies issues carefully and researches them thoroughly. He has even called me from Rome a few
times to get an answer to a question. He has already had telephone conversations with Father Stephen Giannini, the new pastor at St. Luke Parish.”

During his childhood and teen-age years, Martin lived in six states because his father, David, worked in the field of search and rescue for the U.S. Air Force. His mother, Beth, worked in civilian
jobs with the military.

“I was born at the now closed Mather Air Force Base in Sacramento, Calif., and grew up all over the United States,” he said. “I have lived in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, Virginia and Indiana. Our family roots are in Indiana, and I spent many summers at my grandparents’ houses in Bloomington and Crane, Ind. After 24 years of active duty, my father retired from the military and my parents started new careers in Bloomington.”

His sister, Sheila, and brother-in-law, Joseph, live in Virginia with their teenage son, Michael.

Martin was educated “all over the United States” because of his father’s military assignments, and he even studied acting at Clinton Junior High School, the middle school version of the New York School of Performing Arts.

He often assisted military chaplains as an altar server during Masses at Air Force bases, and first felt called to the priesthood during his junior year in high school.

“God never pushes,” Martin said. “He gave me little hints along the way to suggest to me that he was calling me to his service and to the service of his Church. He was very patient with me and with my ideas of what I thought my life was going to be. I have always loved going to Mass. It was like I was home. I was in God’s house and he had a place for me there.”

Martin graduated from high school in Newport News, Va., in 1994 then earned a bachelor’s degree in classical studies at the former Saint Meinrad College in southern Indiana.

After affiliating with the archdiocese in 1995, he began studying for the priesthood and completed a bachelor’s degree in sacred theology at the Pontifical North American College in Rome last spring. He is currently studying for a canon law degree at St. Thomas University—The Angelicum in Rome.

“My studies in Rome have been a true blessing for me,” Martin said. “I have learned what it means to say that we are a universal Church. I have gone to a university in Rome with people from a lot of different countries. I have friends now in England, Scotland, Ireland, Lebanon, Sri Lanka and various countries in Africa. I even have a friend who is a priest in Fiji. It really helps me realize just how big the Church is and just how big the world is, all at the same time.

“To live at the heart of Christendom has been intriguing at times and very challenging as well,” he said. “To be the pope’s ‘next-door neighbor,’ so to speak, is truly amazing. I have met him twice
and been in his presence on countless occasions, and each time I am in awe of just how great that man really is.

“One cannot live at the North American College and not speak about the tremendous opportunities there are to travel,” Martin said. “I had the great opportunity to spend two weeks in the Holy Land during Easter of 2001, before all the recent fighting broke out, and was amazed at the land and its people. To walk in the ‘footsteps of Jesus’ was a miraculous thing that I will never forget even if I never get to return there.”

He also enjoys visiting Assisi, made famous by the life and ministry of St. Francis of Assisi, and Orvieto, a town in northern Italy.

“The history and the culture, with its art and architecture, have been a true education for me,” he said, “and have helped to solidify my fantastic four years of living in Europe.”

In his leisure time, Martin enjoys listening to country and jazz music, watching movies, reading “good novels” and learning new computer skills.

“I have been an amateur magician for the past 10 years and have performed professionally,” he said. “I have designed a lot of magic effects as well. Another one of my favorite pastimes is writing. I enjoy writing poetry and short stories, and have been writing a novel for the past four years.”

Martin’s namesake, St. Justin Martyr, is one of his favorite saints “because of his strong witness to the faith in the face of heresy in the first century.”

Other favorite saints include St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Ignatius and St. John of the Cross, he said.

“The rosary continues to have a profound effect in my life,” he said.

Martin is pleased to be a member of a large ordination class with seven other deacons.

“In college, we had the biggest freshman class that Saint Meinrad [School of Theology] has seen in a while,” he said. “In Rome, they told us we were part of the biggest class since Vatican II. It is fantastic to be part of a big ordination class because it shows others the potentiality of the priests being ordained today—good, holy, wholesome priests who are welltrained and are ready and eager to serve the Church.”

Martin hopes other men who have “the slightest inkling that they are being called to the priesthood or religious life” will follow God’s call without hesitation. “Follow God’s call and he will lead you to an amazing life full of excitement and wonder,” Martin said. “That is what I feel—excitement and wonder at the thought of being a servant of God and his people, a priest of Jesus Christ. The
North American College motto says it best: ‘My heart is firm [steadfast].’ I feel so blessed to be called [to the priesthood] that sometimes I am overcome with emotion. I hope and pray that I can
share this zeal I have with everyone I serve.

“St. Augustine once said something in one of his great sermons that I have adapted to myself and my relationship with the people I will serve,” Martin said.“ ‘God has called me to the priesthood,
my priesthood is his, and it is for you that I am a priest.’ My prayer is, ‘May God always help his priests to serve his people in the best way possible.’ ” †

 

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