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ANSWERING THE CALL

By Robyn Bradley Litchfield

Nineteen weeks ago today, Michael Labadie attended mass at his home church. 

On that morning, however -- the day after his May 18 ordination in Mobile -- it was a special mass. It was a mass of thanksgiving.

Labadie stood at the altar of Our Lady Queen of Mercy Catholic Church. Wearing a red Damascene silk chasuble, he consecrated the Host and elevated it for adoration of the faithful.

Throughout this special service, its significance soon to become evident, he paused, closed his eyes and held back tears.

"... God and the church and you deserve good priests. And so I ask all of you for your continued prayers and support," said Labadie, surveying the congregation of family and friends. "Please pray for me. Help me to be a good priest. And then let's help each other grow closer to God and to love him with our whole hearts."

Now, almost five months into his vocation, Labadie delights in his decision to dedicate his life to Christian service. He is associate pastor of the Church of the Holy Spirit on Vaughn Road, and he is part of the theology department at Montgomery Catholic Preparatory School's high school campus, his alma mater.
"I didn't know I would ever be this happy," said Labadie, who turned 29 about two weeks after his ordination. "There is nothing else. This is my life."

This young man's devotion surprises no one who knows him well.

His eldest sister, Denise Donohue of Montgomery, admitted her brother's plans to enter the priesthood surprised her initially, but his news made sense.

"Whatever he does, he always does it with every fiber of his being, which is perfect for being a priest," she said. "I knew whatever he did, he would go all the way."

Announcing his decision

Looking back, Labadie's mother, Mary Ann Labadie, remembers watching her son serve as altar boy, beginning in the third grade. She said one thought did pop into her mind, something besides the fact that he might trip on the stairs to the altar.

"I was thinking, 'It might be nice for him to be a priest,'" she said. "But I was still very surprised when he told us. Michael was just a regular guy."

He went out on dates, played soccer, basketball, and football, his mother said. At Huntingdon College, Labadie was very active in his fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon, where he was honored as Brother of the Year, she said.

"But ever since the children were little, I kind of told them what they would be -- one a vet, one a doctor, and Michael would be a lawyer," she said. "Even at Huntingdon, he entered pre-law. I thought he would make a good lawyer."

Labadie's older sister agreed.

"When we were little, we always knew my sister (Laura Finger of Dallas) wanted to be a doctor. She would cut on her baby dolls," Donohue said. "She would be the doctor, and Michael would be the lawyer."

However, after Labadie took a psychology course at Huntingdon, his interests changed slightly as psychology led him to theology.

He said, "I have an extremely devout family. My father is a permanent deacon, and both my parents are extremely involved in the church. I had been an altar boy, but by my senior year of high school, I was no longer practicing my faith in an active way."

Back then, Labadie assumed that at some time, he would marry and have children.

Then, during his freshman year of college, a good friend's death caused him to question his faith.
"I wondered, 'Is there a God? How could he let this happen?'" he said.

After being re-exposed to theology between his junior and senior years at Huntingdon, he got back into church. And by February 1994, he felt God was calling him to priesthood.

His mother noticed a change in Labadie before he made his announcement.
"Somewhere between his junior and senior years, he became more introspective," she said.

Still, she said, she didn't pry. When children are young, it is their parents' responsibility to take them to the doctor, dentist and church.

"Once they turn 18, they must decide. They must take themselves," Mary Ann Labadie said.
At this time, Labadie's father, Jim Labadie, also noticed a change in their son. The younger Labadie then approached them about making a retreat of discernment, a place for prayer and soul-searching. They found such a place in Louisiana, St. Joseph Seminary College, where he spent a week.

"After that first retreat, I figured he was in it for the long haul," Jim Labadie said.

Labadie then headed for seminary, to find out what God wanted for his life.

"I said, 'If I believe God is a loving God calling all of us to serve Him, He will show me,'" Labadie said.

"But I kind of knew if I went to seminary, I would never want to leave."

In fact, from that point, Labadie faced about seven years of training. After graduating from St. Joseph Seminary College in Lousiana, he studied theology at the Pontifical North American College in Rome.

He then spent three years earning a degree in sacred theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. In October 2001, he was ordained as a deacon at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.

After returning to the United States, he served for three months in South Bronx, N.Y. Then it was back to Alabama to serve 10 months as a deacon in a Semmes parish.

When he realized he was called to enter the priesthood, Labadie said he sacrificed some relationships.
"I had to break up with my girlfriend, tell my friends," he said. "Some people don't understand when you say, 'I think God may be calling me.'"

Growing up in Montgomery

Labadie and his family first moved to Montgomery from Ohio in 1979, when his dad was in the U.S. Air Force.

Six years old at the time, Labadie entered first grade at what is now Montgomery Catholic Preparatory School's Queen of Mercy campus, which is where he met Alice Ortega's youngest daughter, Amy.
"He and my daughter were the best of friends," said Alice Ortega, a longtime English teacher at Montgomery's Catholic High School. "Every time a new sport would start, Michael would have to teach her that sport."

Ortega watched the youngsters out in the yard, amused at how young Michael Labadie would show her daughter the three-point stance.

"He would take her hand, shape it just right. Then he would move her rear end until she was in the right position, and then he would make her run," Ortega said. "He was just a dear, dear child, always very pleasant. I don't think they ever had any squabbles."
Later, as young Labadie entered Montgomery's Catholic High School, his friend's mother became his teacher.

Ortega remembers a bright young man who was in honors classes. He was -- and still is -- an avid reader, she said.

"He has a great sense of humor, but is still very sensitive," she said. "When Amy had her first baby, Michael and two of their buddies stood out in the hall for the delivery. When she had the baby, they all just burst into tears."

Back to school

This past August, when Labadie returned to Catholic High School, Ortega did not greet him as her child's best friend or as a former student -- she greeted him as a fellow teacher.

"Michael -- we call him Father Mike -- is getting along very well in school," she said. "Our first faculty meeting, he commented about how strange it is to be back as a faculty member. But he still calls everyone what he did as a student. I'm still Mrs. O."

Including Ortega, six of Labadie's teachers are still at Catholic High. Bernard Frye, Joseph Arban, Michael Petrof, Susan Roberts and Faustin Weber, who now is the president of the entire Catholic school system.

Labadie said, "Mr. Weber was my Catholic doctrine teacher, and now I am teaching doctrine to his son."
Sophomore Laura Debortoli also is in his class currently.

"He is really cool. I've learned a lot of stuff so far, and it hasn't even been nine weeks (since school started)," Laura said.

She said Labadie treats his students like young adults instead of little kids, which she appreciates.
During a recent class, Labadie sprinkled his lecture on the four marks of the Catholic Church with comical comments.

While he paced back and forth from his desk to the green chalkboard to the other side of the room, he appeared relaxed with the sophomores. And they with him.

Occasionally jingling the change in his right coat pocket, Labadie explained the marks, or characteristics, of the church in terms his students could understand.

Even the school's principal, Doug Jones, occasionally sits in on the class because it is enjoyable.
"Father Michael has a very sharp mind and very sharp and quick wit," said Jones, who joined the faculty in 1995 and became principal this year.

Jones said Labadie also spends a great deal of time at school, even though he only teaches one class each day.

"He provides an excellent example of vocation opportunity for young men and women," Jones said. "(His vocation) didn't take anything away from him -- it added to him."
And from what Ortega has witnessed, Labadie is doing a great job in the classroom.
"The kids apparently really like him and are relating to him, which is super," she said. "It is nice for them to have that role model. They need that. And it's nice that a priest can be that role model."

Following tradition

On the morning of his mass of thanksgiving, Labadie took a few moments to share with those gathered the pious custom involving his maniturgiam, a white cloth used in his ordination.

Attempting to hold back his tears of joy, Labadie explained how the maniturgiam had been wrapped around his hands after they had been consecrated with holy oil. He then used the cloth to wipe away the oil.

Prior to the service, he had had the cloth embroidered. Its message included: "This Maniturgiam is presented to Mrs. Mary Ann Labadie, by her devoted son, Fr. Michael W. Labadie, as a sign of his love and gratitude."

Labadie then placed the cloth in a silver box, which was engraved with "Woman behold your son" (John 19:26), Christ's final words to his mother, he said.

"The pious custom is a way of honoring the mother of a priest," he said. "The custom says that she keeps the gift until she dies, and then she is buried with it so that, when she goes to meet her Lord and judge, she can show him what she gave to the church. Like Mary, she gave her own son to be a priest."
As Mary Ann Labadie listened to her son that day, her eyes filled with tears -- as did most everyone's in the service.

When he approached her, Mary Ann Labadie rose, accepted her son's gift and squeezed him tight.
"The entire church was sobbing," she said. "There was 'sniff, sniff, sniff,' to open sobbing all the way to the back of the church."

And Donohue, his oldest sister, still cries when she recalls the event.
"The organist stopped playing because he was crying," Donohue said. "His ordination was incredible. But his first mass was just overwhelming."

As she and the rest of the family sat on the front pew of Queen of Mercy and watched Labadie consecrate the Host for the first time, Donohue said the look on her brother's face said it all.
"You could tell what all those years of training were for," she said, wiping tears from her cheek. "We are all so proud of him."

Her father, Jim Labadie, agreed.
"You're always proud of your children, always. But this is kind of the same feeling a father has when his daughter gets married," Jim Labadie said. "But this is a man who has dedicated himself to serving God by serving (God's) people. We're so happy for him."

Jim Labadie said as a priest, his son is like a man with children, like the man in the parable of the prodigal son.

"He (Labadie) is looking for his 'lost son', praying his child will return home," Jim Labadie said, referring to those who have no personal relationship with Christ.
But as with any good dad, Labadie said his role as a priest does not begin at 9 a.m. and end at 5 p.m.

"This is not a job," the young priest said. "It's my life."

Reprinted with permission from the Montgomery Advertiser, Montgomery, Ala.

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