Texas native ordained to transitional diaconate

By Renée St. Martin Wizeman

On June 30, Diocese of Helena seminarian Bart Tolleson became Deacon Bart Tolleson. This native Texan’s response to his call to vocation has covered much territory – both in terms of geography and experience.

Montana beckons
In his opening remarks during the Mass, Bishop George L. Thomas thanked the state of Texas and the Diocese of Dallas for “this gift” – namely, Bart.
Deacon Tolleson had been a seminarian for the Diocese of Dallas beginning in 2000, and spent his initial formation at St. Mary Seminary in Houston; after first theology, he left the seminary for a year “specifically and purposely” to finish his dissertation for his Ph.D. in communication.
“With my dissertation behind me, I took a serious look at sorts of places God may be calling me. My sister Tammy is one of the biggest supporters of my vocation (although she herself is not Catholic), and I always miss being away from her and her family,” Deacon Tolleson explained.
Since 1996, he has visited Tammy and her family – husband Ryan, sons Koessler, Cole and Jace and newborn daughter Shaelyn– in Missoula. “I’ve always loved Montana, and I fell more in love with it during each subsequent visit,” he said.
During his pastoral year at seminary, Tolleson gave serious thought to moving elsewhere. “In the back of my mind, I thought about moving here, but didn’t know much about this diocese – it was important that I would be running toward something to embrace it,” he said.
To ascertain if he was being called to serve as a priest in Montana, he investigated the option. He contacted Father Eric Gilbaugh, Father Matt Huber and Msgr. Kevin O’Neill, during his 2005 Christmas break.
“I had a marvelous encounter with those three and talked with my sister about it,” he noted. In March 2006, he spent a week with Bishop Thomas. “I discerned that God was calling me here, and I had the blessing of my bishop in Dallas and the blessing of the seminary as well.”
Bishop Thomas consulted with St. Mary Seminary in Houston, and a distance learning plan was crafted. The plan was a combination of online courses through the Internet, professors coming to Montana and Tolleson traveling back to the seminary on three occasions. As a result, he was able to complete fourth theology while living in East Helena. He noted that the seminary had requested that he live in Montana for a year before his ordination, which means he will be ordained after most of his classmates.

To the priesthood, by way of academia and RCIA
Deacon Tolleson’s path to the priesthood has been a winding road. As a college freshman, he immediately knew that he wanted to major in communication. “Growing up, I was always a fan of movies, film, fiction, narrative and I was very creative – so it seemed like a natural fit for me,” he explained.
While at Wheaton College in Illinois, he was involved in theater; he also minored in visual art and produced film projects. As a result of a particularly ambitious film project, he was accepted into New York University’s highly competitive film and television program.
Tolleson moved to New York to pursue his studies. “It was an amazing and kind of scary time in my life. If I was ever close to losing my faith, it was there,” he said. The exposure to so many diverse ideas and backgrounds really challenged his viewpoint.
It was also at this time that he was exposed to Catholicism in a “major, positive way” as one of his classmates was a practicing Catholic. This exposure planted a seed that would be piqued later on.
He left the NYU program because while he loved filmmaking, he also wanted to teach.
He had a friend who had gone from Wheaton College to Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va. At his friend’s urging, he transferred to finish his master’s degree in communication, with an emphasis in radio and television and went on to be the outstanding graduate in the program.
While working on his master’s thesis, Tolleson became acquainted with a Catholic professor who taught an evening class on Catholicism for evangelicals. He went to Mass with his professor and “began to seriously question and challenge my theological and religious bent and to pray very seriously about the Catholic faith.”
“Besides the logic of the Catholic doctrine, it was the example of the saints that convinced me it was time to enter RCIA and become Catholic,” he said. And in 1994, he was received in the Church during the Easter Vigil. This was also when he began his Ph.D. studies in communication at Regent University.
Tolleson’s mother, Lynda, explained that her children had always been surrounded by the Christian faith. “We did everything we could to raise our children in a Christ-centered home,” she said.
“I was raised in very faith-filled home, went to faith-filled church, and had a very good Christian education in high school, all of which planted seeds and helped me to really cultivate a relationship with Christ,” Tolleson said. “When I became Catholic, I wasn’t worshipping a new God, or new Jesus – I was being called. I know it’s true because in the storms in my life there’s been an emerging joy about the priesthood that runs at the deepest levels, despite many obstacles priests face today, that I know I will also face.
“I’ve not doubted for a moment my decision to become Catholic. I have a great love of the Church that I want to share with other people; and I can share that as a priest,” he said.
Lynda Tolleson noted that it wasn’t long after her son’s conversion to Catholicism that he began talking about the priesthood.
“There were lots of obstacles to overcome; I always thought I would marry and have a family; being a minister was not anywhere on my radar in terms of career goals, so the idea was kind of shocking. I knew very little about life as a cleric or as a religious. I had no concept, no true understanding of what that really meant,” Tolleson noted. He spent the next few years exploring some of those avenues, as he continued to work on his Ph.D.

A step closer to the priesthood
With all of the twists and turns of his faith journey, Tolleson moved closer to his vocation as Bishop Thomas ordained him to the transitional diaconate.
His parents, Lynda and William, sister, brother-in-law and nephews and niece all witnessed his ordination, along with many members of Ss. Cyril and Methodius Parish, where Tolleson has been assigned as a deacon.
The ceremony began with the bishop asking Father Tom O’Donnell, pastor of Ss Cyril and Methodius and diocesan director of priestly vocations, if Tolleson was prepared for ordination. “He is,” Father O’Donnell answered.
Prayers followed and the litany was sung by the parish choir. Then Bishop Thomas laid his hands on Tolleson’s head to ordain him. Permanent Deacon Robert Miller and Tolleson’s seminary classmate Father Brian Zarsky of the Diocese of Austin vested him.
Msgr. Joseph Harrington and Father Jerry Lowney joined Father O’Donnell as con-celebrants, with Father John Robertson serving as master of ceremonies. Deacon Miller served as deacon for the Liturgy of the Word; Tolleson served as deacon for the Liturgy of the Eucharist after he was ordained.
During his homily, Bishop Thomas began by challenging the congregation to finish various proverbs. Impressed by their quick responses, he quipped, “I’m signing all of you up for Jeopardy,” then asked Father O’Donnell if he had rehearsed this.
Bishop Thomas then went on to note that an entire Old Testament book is dedicated to the wisdom of Proverbs. He referenced the triptych of Christian proverbs in the Gospel of St. Luke, all of which are directed to “disciples aspiring to learn the ways of discipleship.”
“We have before us today a young man who aspires to a new kind of discipleship, a man who presents himself for Sacred Orders in the Diocese of Helena,” Bishop Thomas said.
“Bart Tolleson is a man who possesses multiple gifts and talents, a man with a keen intellect, a self-effacing disposition and a deep and abiding love for Christ and the Church. He has been the embodiment of patient endurance and docility to the mind of Christ and the Church.”
Bishop Thomas explained that his ordination to the transitional diaconate would make Bart a minister of the Word, of the altar and of charity, with the accompanying privileges of presiding over public prayer, celebrating the sacrament of baptism, assisting at and blessing marriages and bringing Viaticum to the dying, and conducting funeral rites, as well as proclaiming the Gospel, preparing the altar, distributing communion and attending to the least and last in the community.
“Dear Bart, I ask you to become a living proverb for our people, an individual whose very way of life points others to the timeless truths of Jesus Christ,” Bishop Thomas said.

Giving thanks for fruit born of perseverance
In remarks following the benediction, Deacon Tolleson thanked his parents, sister and brother-in-law, Father Zarsky and the people who’ve prayed for him, especially those at Ss. Cyril and Methodius Parish, as well as Bishop Thomas, Father O’Donnell, Deacon Miller, the staff, pastoral council and choir of Ss. Cyril and Methodius, as well as the Knights of Columbus who provided a Fourth Degree honor guard at the Mass.
“Thanks be to God for your ongoing support of my ministry,” Tolleson said, and then invited everyone to a “Bart-B-Que” to celebrate his ordination.
“All of the family has come to the place that they are so happy that he’s happy; this is the way he’s choosing to serve God. He is serving God where God wants him to, so what more could you want for your kids,” said Lynda Tolleson.
For the next several months, Tolleson will serve as a deacon at Ss. Cyril and Methodius Parish.
“Bart has a very dry sense of humor – he’s great to work with. He does anything and everything we’ve asked him to do, always around to offer his help no matter what we need – physical labor, helping someone in need when they call or walk in the door. He’s one of the most intelligent men I’ve met, yet he makes it easy for us normal people to understand him,” said Denise Volesky, office manager at Ss. Cyril and Methodius Parish.
And Tolleson has some simple, yet sage advice for young men considering a call to the priesthood: “The first thing I would say is what Pope John Paul II said – ‘Don’t be afraid.’ Explore, investigate and trust that God will provide for anything you need.”

Published in The Montana Catholic, Vol. 23, No. 7, July 20, 2007.