Stephen McClain has served at the altar since he was a kid. He knew how to vest, where to stand, and the order of the Mass. Then, before this year’s Mass for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Wedding of the Sea, he put on the collar.
“Putting on my collar for the first time was what really struck me that this was real, that there was no going back,” he said. “But there was also peace, that this is where I should be right now.”
McClain, of Church of the Incarnation, Mantua, is one of four young men who were welcomed Aug. 9 as new seminarians for the Diocese of Camden. All four vested for the first time in the choir room of Saint Ann Church, Notre Dame de la Mer Parish, Wildwood, on Aug. 14, the Vigil of the Assumption.
They have something else in common, too: Each young man got to that point because someone told him he would be a good priest.
For McClain, people at his parish had been telling him for years that he should be a priest, but he had not wanted it for himself. Instead, he went to Rowan University in Glassboro and graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. On campus, he spent his time with Catholic campus ministry in the Newman House, where he fell in love with theology and thought about spending his life teaching the subject. The priests he met there told him their vocation stories, and he saw the joy and brotherhood they share.
“Joy’s attractive,” he said, “and my mind and heart kept returning to that possibility.”
Bryan Norquist had a teaching job waiting for him in Tokyo. He had spent more than a year in Japan studying the language and volunteering as an English teacher.
“I felt the loudest calling in Japan upon seeing how the faithful lived their lives,” said Norquist, of Saint Bridget University Parish, Glassboro.
He recalled how an elderly Japanese nun told him that she had been praying for him to become a priest since the day they met. His parish priest recommended he come home and discern, so he turned down the job and went home. Last fall, his grandmother told him she was submitting his name through the “Called By Name” program.
Before the Assumption Mass in Wildwood, he was the only one of the four new seminarians who had never been an altar server as a child. “I was thinking how I will eventually get used to this,” he said.
His brother seminarians handed him his vestments, showed him where to stand and told him when to move. Norquist said he wants to do the same for the next man to discern the priesthood.
Brendan Lacey grew up in Haddon Heights, and his home parish is Saint Peter in Merchantville. He played football and ran track all four years at Haddon Heights High School, then played rugby all four years at Franciscan University, where his team won the Division III national championship this past spring. He played in every game of that championship run.
He started altar serving in seventh grade after Father Alfred, a priest friend of his family, told him how much he loved being a priest. Lacey pushed the thought of priesthood away, but it came back during a semester in Austria in Spring 2024.
On April 1, 2025, his brother sent him a text explaining how he could not stop thinking that Lacey would make a great priest. A month or so later, Lacey had a dream in which he told Father Alfred he wanted to be a priest. In May 2025, he told Father Alfred, who introduced him to the diocesan vocations team. Bishop Joseph Williams gave him the news of his seminary acceptance after Mass on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart.
“It was legitimately the happiest day of my life so far,” Lacey said.
Jaccob Akerlind, the oldest of three boys, is a parishioner of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Absecon. He is an Eagle Scout and a Red Cross certified lifeguard. This year, he graduated from high school, joined the Knights of Columbus, and spent the summer working as a nationally certified emergency medical technician.
At age 6, he and his cousin agreed that they would both become priests and live at parishes down the street from each other. After eighth grade, he attended his first Steubenville conference and began discerning the priesthood. Members of his parish had been telling him he would make a good priest for years. He reached out to a priest when he turned 16, and again at the start of his senior year of high school.
Being an altar server since fourth grade, Akerlind found vesting for the Wedding of the Sea this year a bit familiar.
“One difference was trying to figure out what to do with the collar,” he said.
None of the four new seminarians were surprised when a letter from Bishop Williams arrived that informed them how their names had been submitted through “Called By Name.”
“Especially as I began the application process, words from others continued to surface, confirming in a way that I was on the path I was supposed to be on,” he said.
Norquist agreed. After his name was submitted through “Called By Name,” he began receiving invitations to discernment events.
“Upon returning to America, I didn’t have many connections, but those events made me feel right at home with other discerners,” he said. “I knew I wasn’t alone.”
Did You Know
The Diocese of Camden has numerous ways to help men discern how to listen for God’s call in their lives.
- Attend a Holy Hour for Vocations on the first Friday of every month from 7-8 p.m. The next one is Oct. 2 at Our Lady of Peace Parish, Williamstown.
- If you’re a young man (16–39) wondering if God might be calling you to the priesthood, or someone has told you that you should consider the priesthood, you don’t have to figure this out alone. Reach out to a Diocese of Camden vocations director or learn more at camdenpriest.org.
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