Deacon Robert Holz first thought about becoming a priest when he was seven years old. Now, 40 years later, he is about to be ordained.

The calling stayed with him as he grew, but “at each point there was some more immediate goal. I put it on the back burner where it was just a quiet whisper.
“One day, I woke up ... and said it’s time to address it.” That was just over five years ago when Deacon Holz was a successful accountant who owned his own home in Bethpage. “I was treated well by generous bosses,” he recalled. “I had gotten to a stage in life where I looked like I should be very happy, and I was, but there was still something missing.

“I would sit in a church, when they had the prayer of the faithful and the last one was usually for vocations ... that intercession would hurt me. I think that’s what a vocation call sounds like. I was supposed to answer.” He knew he had to at least give it a try.
When he told his parents, Robert and Rita, who now live in Florida, they held back their enthusiasm at first, he said, “because they wanted to make sure it was my decision. But once I entered (the seminary), they came on full force. In their minds, this was exactly right.”

Robert Holz uses incense during evening prayer at Immaculate Conception Seminary, Huntington, in 2007. TLIC photo/Gregory A. Shemitz

The most difficult adjustment for Deacon Holz when he entered the seminary was that he suddenly had to live by someone else’s rules. “Living alone for so many years, all my rules were my rules. I wasn’t impinging on anyone else. It was all me. Because of my accounting work, I was often responsible for other people’s time. Here, I’m not even in charge of my own time.”

Of course, he said, the seminary was preparing him for when a priest has to answer the needs of the people he serves. Living at St. Frances de Chantal, Wantagh, during his pastoral year “really solidified my decision,” he said. “I got along well with everyone in the rectory, and the people in the parish had such big hearts. They were so hard working. All the ministries are run very well ... by caring, loving people.

“They have become an inspiration for me. They are also a source that will keep me humble — when you think about standing in front of them and you know there are saints sitting in the pews,” he said.

Deacon Holz’s business career also helps him to relate to people in a unique way. “Being a homeowner, working full time, I know the stresses of the railroad, the fear of paying your mortgage when the utilities rise faster than your salary.

“These don’t sound like spiritual issues, but at some point they become spiritual questions,” he said, when people struggle with keeping everyday life from pushing out spirituality.

When he traveled to the Dominican Republic with his classmates, it was an “incredible experience to see the faith of the people who materially have next to nothing. They came looking to have their faith fed ... looking for something spiritual.”

Putting so much effort into his career didn’t leave Deacon Holz with time for lots of hobbies, but he enjoys riding his motorcycle, a 1977 Sportster.

“My motorcycle is older than some of my classmates,” joked Deacon Holz, who at 47 is the senior member of the class of 2008. Despite being 20 years older than his youngest classmate, Deacon Lachlan Cameron, Deacon Holz said that “age has never been a barrier (at the seminary). I never felt much older than any of the other guys of the class ... because of the way we treat each other.”