A call inspired and nourished by faith
David Schunk was a sophomore at the University of Northern Colorado when the example of a parish priest first led him to consider the priesthood.
“Just seeing Father Greg Ames’ influence in the lives of the parish community – that was the beginning of my vocation,” Deacon Schunk said of the pastor of St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Greeley, Colo. “There seemed to be an intensity to the prayer at the parish. It was something exceptional.”
Now a transitional deacon, Schunk will receive Holy Orders June 26 at the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco, along with fellow seminarian Deacon Wade Bjerke.
Schunk studied music education and attended Mass and played the trumpet at St. Peter’s, which had a campus ministry outreach. Deacon Schunk said he enjoyed being in a parish with a variety of people and activities rather than just a university parish but was mostly wrapped up in classes and college activities. “When I felt this call by God, I got a little more involved in things. Although I didn’t really speak to anyone in campus ministry about this, I found it to be a very supportive environment, a prayerful environment,” he said.
In 2003, after one year as a substitute teacher and another year as a teacher in rural California, Schunk entered St. Patrick Seminary and University in Menlo Park. Following two years studying philosophy, he continued his theological studies at the Pontifical North American College in Rome. He will return to Italy for another year to complete his License in Sacred Theology before taking up his assignment in the Archdiocese of San Francisco in 2011. He expects to work in a parish this summer and when he completes his theology degree in Rome to be assigned to a parish.
“I see myself going in the direction of being a parish priest,” said Schunk, who grew up in the parish of St. Anthony of Padua in Novato and spent his pastoral year at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Redwood City. “We will have to see where God leads me after that.”
Deacon Schunk, 31, says his mother and father and his sister pray for him, and have been encouraging and supportive. “I think while they were perhaps surprised, they weren’t turned off by the idea of me entering the seminary.”
Priests are called by God, Deacon Schunk said. “I think a person really doesn’t know the gifts that they bring until they are really into their situation.” That said, based on his pastoral year experiences with school children and his two years teaching, “I bring my own experiences and my own faith as each one of us does.”
And Schunk says he hopes to bring back to San Francisco his experience of living in Rome. “The city of Rome has been consecrated by the blood of the martyrs,” he said. “Having been nourished by their own faith in Christ that they died for and lived for, and really coming to understand that in my own life – hopefully I can bring back to other men and women in San Francisco that our faith isn’t something new. It’s the faith that people have lived before us and (it will live) after us. Their faith helps our own faith in Christ.”
By Valerie Schmalz
From May 28, 2010 issue of Catholic San Francisco.
