Father Joly marking 25 years of priesthood
“Is this all there is?”
Father Michael Joly asked that question of God when he found himself an unfulfilled college graduate working in the secular world.
“There was a cavern that was not being filled,” he said.
One of 11 children, Father Joly, 53, grew up in a “nominal Catholic family” and said he “always had a sense of the sacred” as a child, explaining that he and his family received the sacraments of initiation and attended Mass at Christmas and Easter.
Although he lost his sight at age 5-and-a-half after undergoing four brain surgeries, Father Joly attended public schools. He noted that at that time, children with handicaps were segregated into specialty schools for their need, i.e., hearing or sight.
“But I was mainstreamed into public schools. That was a blessing because I was able to acclimate a little better to a sighted world,” he said.
Father Joly earned a bachelor’s degree in human resource management from Rhode Island College in 1989.
Discerning through music
As music was a passion of Father Joly’s, at 17 he began working as a choir director and continued in that position for six years. However, he began to feel “unsatisfied even with some worldly appreciation” for the way he filled his time.
“Music became a big part of discernment,” he said. “I was placed in a sacred environment of holy Masses, novenas, weddings, being surrounded by the Word and sacraments. And a lot of that helped ultimately clarify the call to priesthood.”
Father Joly entered formation at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore in 1991 and was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Paterson on Nov. 26, 1994.
“I was supposed to be ordained with another seminarian whose name was David,” Father Joly said. “David died two weeks before our ordination. He suffered from a form of cancer, and we were really hoping that he was going to make it.”
The New York Times was present at the jubilarian’s first Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Philip Catholic Church in Clifton, New Jersey.
“I was floored. I did not know they were there,” said Father Joly. “I guess the reason was it was unheard of that someone would be ordained who was blind all his life.”
A unique challenge for Father Joly was that there was no Sacramentary or Lectionary in Braille when he was ordained. For three years, he worked with a woman in Washington to turn the Sacramentary into Braille.
For the jubilarian, the key to a happy vocation has been “truly coming in touch with the mercy of God.”
“It’s been full of surprises. Very, very beautiful ones and very, very difficult ones, but the difficult ones end up being beautiful also,” he said.
Because of his childhood hospitalization, Father Joly said visiting hospitals was “traumatizing” for him because it brought back memories of “a very sick period of my physical health.”
In experiencing the mercy of God, Father Joly said he is now able to be by the bedsides of the suffering or dying.
“It’s no longer about any discomfort that has affected me,” he explained.
Introduction to Diocese of Richmond
Before being incardinated into the Diocese of Richmond in 2012, Father Joly had been traveling to this diocese for all of his priesthood to facilitate various retreats.
“I came and did a particular Advent mission at Joan of Arc in 2005, and I was invited to spend a year at Joan of Arc and at campus ministry at William & Mary. And I loved it so much I requested the possibility of remaining,” he said.
Father Joly has served as pastor of St. Joan of Arc, Yorktown, since 2009. He also served the Diocese of Richmond as parochial vicar (2006-2008) and administrator of that parish (2008-2009) and campus minister and priest at the College of William & Mary (2006-2010).
For Father Joly, the Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. James, has been the metaphor of his priesthood to date. The Camino is a pilgrimage to the Cathedral of St. James in Compostela, Spain, which is walked from various points throughout Europe.
Father Joly has walked the Camino twice. Three years ago, he walked the French route with a group from his parish. They walked 25 kilometers per day, which opened up for Father Joly an understanding of landscapes he never knew.
He said the French Camino represents the first half of his vocation because as the pilgrimage opened up his understanding of landscape, the priesthood “opened up beautiful things I never experienced in sacrament, in people, in worship, in visiting the sick.”
A month ago, he walked the Portuguese route, again with a group from his parish.
“I really think this second Camino helped me name and appreciate the maturing of the second half of the priesthood for me, the second half of the silver years. It was a very maturing Camino,” said Father Joly.
For both journeys, Father Joly had to hold onto someone’s elbow for 8 to 10 hours a day while walking.
“My feet are looking at the ground, as it were, and every step is another anticipated roll of the ankle or twist of the hip,” Father Joly said. “Every step is taken with intention. It’s exhausting and difficult. But literally hanging onto someone’s elbow in order to take the beautiful and difficult steps, that’s a metaphor for the priesthood, and that elbow is Jesus’.”
Father Joly will celebrate a jubilee Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Joan of Arc, Yorktown, at 11:30 a.m. on Nov. 24. He said the theme of his homily that Sunday will be the Camino — “that continues to be walked by God’s mercy.”
“I have felt all of these years that there has to be a deeper significance why the Lord has allowed me to walk it two different times and experience it as I’m reaching this threshold,” he said.