“The year was 1995, and Coolio’s smash hit, ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ had hit the airwaves and the movie Braveheart was a pretty big deal. And I was sitting at home on my couch, and all of a sudden, the idea of the priesthood came to me.”
Kusyk was never able to shake that idea.
“The lives of the saints really inspired me,” said Kusyk. “It all cemented my conviction that I should live for God alone.”
He entered St. Peter’s Seminary in London one year after high school and completed his studies at St. Augustine’s Seminary. Now 28, he awaits his ordination, when he will become of a priest for the archdiocese of Kingston.
Editor’s note: This is one in our series of profiles on the men who will graduate from St. Augustine’s Seminary this spring and be ordained to the priesthood for various dioceses.
Kusyk’s call to serve was first heard at age 13
By Catholic Register Staff
Jan Michael Kusyk faced the greatest obstacle to his vocation to the priesthood, and to his life, before even being born.“I was only six weeks old, still in my mother’s womb, when my mother’s doctor informed her that her body was rejecting me and that the only alternative that made any sense was for her to abort me,” said Kusyk.
His parents returned from that visit to the doctor and prayed for the intercession of St. Joseph. A month later, they consulted another doctor, and to their surprise, their son was doing fine.
Kusyk was born healthy in Bamberg, Germany, and spent his childhood in London, Ont. At 13, he remembers feeling a call to the priesthood in the most unlikely of cicrumstances.
