Fr. Toma is the newest priest for the Duluth Diocese

By Deacon Kyle Eller 
The Northern Cross 

Father Jacob Toma’s vocation story begins young, when he was four or five years old and was “really into, like, knights in shining armor.” Going to Mass with his grandmother one day, he saw “guys with funny hats and swords” and learned that they were the Knights of Columbus, and he also saw a St. Michael statue, with the great angel battling Satan.

Bishop Daniel Felton anoints the hands of Father Jacob Toma with oil during his ordination Mass June 23 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary. (Deacon Kyle Eller / The Northern Cross)

His grandmother told him something he says he’ll never forget: “Jacob, when you grow up, you can be a knight for God and serve him.” 

Bishop Daniel Felton ordained the now-grown “knight for God” to the priesthood for the Diocese of Duluth June 23, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary. 

Father Toma said that call to serve in his grandmother’s words has stayed with him all these years, including serving his two sisters with special needs, and as he grew up into high school, he began to discern more seriously a call to the priesthood with his pastor at the time, Father Gabriel Waweru, as well as through diocesan youth camps and vocations camp. 

“I eventually discerned that God was calling me to seminary,” he said, where the Lord affirmed for him that it’s the life he wanted him to live. 

For instance, on an eight-day silent retreat in seminary, he was praying with a passage from the Prophet Isaiah and felt the Lord call, but it was not the “dinosaurs,” “lightning,” and “thunder” he might have expected, just a feeling of peace. 

“Just that deep feeling of peace was something that resided in that call and remained after that call,” he said. 

Another key moment happened studying in Rome for a semester, where he got to go to Midnight Mass for Christmas Eve with Pope Francis and distribute Holy Communion to the people gathered outside St. Peter’s Basilica. Father Toma said he was moved seeing how many people were there, wondering if he had enough hosts, knowing there was a great need and desire for the Lord in the Eucharist, but seeing how beautiful it was that he was able to do something for Jesus to “feed my sheep.” 

Ordination Mass

The ordination Mass took place on the Solemnity of St. John the Baptist, a fact Bishop Felton noted was particularly fitting with its “cast of holy characters,” including the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Elizabeth, Zechariah, and St. John the Baptist himself, each of whom offered examples of the kind of priest Father Toma should aspire to be. 

Like Mary, the bishop said, Father Toma had been called from the beginning of time for his vocation, and his response should be “one of humbleness and obedience.” 

In Elizabeth’s cry, “who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me,” he said Father Toma should also find inspiration. 

Father Jacob Toma prostrates himself before the altar during his ordination Mass. (Photo by Susan Dunkerley Maguire)

“Jacob, in your years of priesthood, like Elizabeth, there will be so many times when you humbly cry out, ‘Who am I?,’” he said. “Who am I, Lord, that you should come to me to bring your hope to those who are downtrodden and your assurance to those who are lost? Who am I, that you should come to me as a confessor and through me offer your mercy and forgiveness to those seeking to be reconciled to you? Who am I, Lord, that you would come to me so that through me you might offer your holy anointing of healing to those who are sick? And who am I, Lord, that you should come to me, that I should become the very person of Christ as you offer the sacrifice of the Mass in and through me? Who am I, Lord?” 

Like John the Baptist, the bishop said, Father Toma should remember that when he preaches and prepares the way of the Lord, he should remember he is “preaching one who is mightier than you, and that you are not even worthy to loosen the straps of his sandals.” 

And as Zechariah said of his newborn son, Father Toma would be acting as a prophet of the Most High to give people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.

Father Gabriel Waweru assists newly ordained Father Jacob Toma in vesting as part of the ordination Mass June 23 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary. (Deacon Kyle Eller / The Northern Cross)

Bishop Felton also noted that Father Toma was, by his count, the 11th priest to be ordained from Blessed Sacrament parish in Hibbing, a joy celebrated by a busload of parishioners in attendance, and that he was the fifth priest of the diocese whose father is a permanent deacon. Father Toma’s father, Deacon Grant Toma, assisted at the Mass. 

Father Gabriel Waweru, who now serves St. Andrew in Brainerd and St. Mathias in Fort Ripley, assisted Father Toma with vesting during the ordination.

“Growing up and everything, he’s my priest hero,” Father Toma said, “the one who really inspired me to live a life not only of holiness but find a life that’s actually joyful in the priesthood, that it could be joyful.” 

Father Toma said he is also looking forward to his first assignment as a priest, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary and St. Mary Star of the Sea in Duluth, where he had already being serving as a transitional deacon, where he will be serving with Father Seth Gogolin, another priest he admires.