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Most future priests don't have to sit down with their children and make sure everyone's OK with it before going ahead with ordination.

In January, Deacon Richard Lesser did just that with his three children: Evan, a 30-year-old rancher living in western Kansas; Craig, 25, who just graduated from veterinary college in Colorado and joined a practice in Minnesota; and Taryn, 21, who's studying therapeutic horse riding in Colorado with an eye toward a business and psychology degree.

The consensus: "Go for it, Dad!"

Soon-to-be-Father Lesser will be ordained a priest of the Albany Diocese by Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger June 20 at Albany's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. A widower, he is 60 years old -- and is profoundly grateful to Bishop Scharfenberger and Bishop Emeritus Howard J. Hubbard for allowing him to pursue his vocation.

In the parish assignments he's had during his formation, he said, parishioners have remarked, "Isn't it wonderful that you've lived a full life? You're going to be able to relate to us."

Farms and faith
Deacon Lesser is a native of Pennsylvania, born in Bradford and raised in Warren -- "two little oil-well and timber communities," he recalled. His father worked for the Corning Glass corporation, so the family moved to New York State while the future priest was growing up.

Deacon Lesser attended Penn State and Cornell University and became an equine veterinarian, along with his wife, Dr. Marilyn Schmidt. For years, the couple owned a large veterinary practice based in Ravena that covered an area larger than the 10,000-square-mile Albany Diocese, employing 35 people, including nine vets.

"There's a lot of horses around here," Deacon Lesser explained.

He worked long hours, traveling from farm to farm to care for sick horses, and kept horses on a farm himself, finding the work very rewarding.

Looking back, though, he said that "what got me out of bed in the middle of the night was my clients. I miss the horses, but it was pretty much the people."

Horses, he added, may be seen as business commodities to some people, but to many others, they're as much pets or members of the family as a dog or cat.

People person
Their owners came from an economic spectrum as large as any parish, too. The deacon recalled sitting in some clients' kitchens with a cup of Sanka and a few saltine crackers, and dining out at fine restaurants with others.

All along, Deacon Lesser lived his faith quietly. His veterinary practice, he said, had "an unexpressed Christian culture and ethic." He was a member of some prayer groups for professional people.

"We all went to church; we all prayed -- but I was the one that wanted to teach religion," he said. "I've always been a little more attached to churches, structures."

He served as a catechist at his parish, St. Patrick's in Ravena, and completed the Albany Diocese's Kateri Institute for Lay Ministry Formation program "with the vague idea that it would make me a better confirmation teacher."

Tragedy
Then came a terrible day in 2005.

"My wife was the tall, thin, athletic one who was supposed to live forever," he said.

On Sept. 27, while coaching soccer, Dr. Schmidt suddenly had a fatal arrhythmia. Craig did CPR on his mother while emergency personnel raced to the scene, but nothing could save her.

At times like that, Deacon Lesser said, the line between faith, family and friends is blurred. Having lived through such a loss and learned how all three can support people through the most difficult periods of life, "I'll be better equipped to deal with those situations" when parishioners are facing a death.

After his wife's passing, Deacon Lesser said he had "no particular plan in mind." Still practicing as a vet, he ended up also enrolling at St. Bernard's School of Theology and Ministry in Albany, just because "it seemed like the thing to do."

By 2012, he'd finished a Master's of Divinity degree -- and had gradually realized that he had a vocation to the priesthood.

When he completed a unit of clinical-pastoral education (CPE) at Albany Medical Center, doing pastoral care with patients, it became concrete: "This is not something I'm doing; it's who God made me to be, at my core."

Hand of God
He didn't just apply to the Diocese for acceptance into formation for the priesthood; thinking about his age, he sold his veterinary practice, rented out his house and began an odyssey of visiting family and friends while he awaited the decision.

Diocesan officials wanted to wait until Taryn finished a semester of college before giving Deacon Lesser the go-ahead -- which he believes was a good idea -- but for him, there was to be no going back. "It was a leap of faith," the deacon told The Evangelist. "I'd folded up my professional life, handed off my civic responsibilities. I can see the hand of God in this."

The Bishops apparently did, too. Deacon Lesser was accepted and entered Pope St. John XXIII Seminary near Boston, which focuses on "second-career priests." He said it helped to be around other men in the same situation -- but few people in his life seemed surprised at his pursuit of the priesthood, anyway.

Some people told him, "This would be a good career move for you." A few acquaintances were angry that a "man of science" would "join the ranks of religion." But the vast majority said, "Wow, I can see that -- and by the way, can we sit down and talk?" It seemed like the future priest already had requests for spiritual aid.

Family weighs in
"My mother is so confused: 'I thought you were married.' My kids were not surprised at all. They're pretty pragmatic," Deacon Lesser added, smiling. "Evan did bring up that I haven't had a boss for 30 years: 'How's that going to work, Dad?'

"I think it's going to be OK. I didn't have a direct superior, but [as a vet,] you worked for the clients."

In "Seminarian's Diary" columns he wrote for The Evangelist during his formation, he joked wryly about going back to school at the same time as his daughter, and noted that she thought she should get his sportier car and he should take her old Ford as more befitting his new station in life.

("My new car is a Mini Cooper," he noted in his recent interview. "I turned in the other car. She still has the old Ford.")

The future priest also said his family is used to having him work on holidays: "Horses didn't care that it was Christmas, either. I don't think that we ever got through a Thanksgiving or Christmas without going out to see one or two sick horses."

These days, his children are just making a point of planning great vacations for the time they do spend together. Deacon Lesser said they want to go to Montana next time to ride horses in Glacier National Park for a week.

As for his age, Deacon Lesser said he's in good health and active. With his background, he'll be comfortable in any parish setting, city, suburban or rural. During priestly formation, he served at parishes in Massachusetts and at Immaculate Heart of Mary in Watervliet and St. Jude the Apostle in Wynantskill, as well as keeping in touch with Our Lady of Hope in Copake Falls, his "sponsoring parish," which has provided some financial support (read a previous story at www.evangelist.org).

Still a G.P.
"Parish ministry is like being a general practitioner, which I was. There's a lot of personal contact," he said.

Parish administration doesn't scare the former business owner. He's also looking forward to celebrating the sacraments and doing social outreach, from home visits to hospital sick calls.

It would be particularly exciting to be assigned to a parish that has a school, he said: "How could you not walk through a school and not feel energized by the kids?"

As he looks toward priestly ordination, Deacon Lesser is also looking back. Everyone asks what his wife would think of his vocation, he said, but "this isn't something we signed up to do together. It would never have crossed my mind in a million years if Marilyn was alive. She made me a better version of myself. I would have been happily married for the rest of my life to Marilyn. Things are different now.

"The Diocese was very good about recognizing that my first vocation to married life and fatherhood was not something priesthood could usurp," he added.

When he becomes "Father Rick" this weekend, Deacon Lesser will be beginning a journey that can only last for 15 years of active priestly ministry before he hits the mandatory retirement age for priests in the Albany Diocese.

"Fifteen years doesn't seem very long," he remarked. "I'm going to be a little blip on the Church's radar." Still, "this is a tremendous gift and a tremendous responsibility. God's asking a great deal. You just have to continue to pray for wisdom and strength.

"There's a million things that could have kept this from happening, and none of them have. I see God's hand in that."[[In-content Ad]]

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