“All the Good That was set Before Me” — Rev. Ronald McCann, FSSP (’18)

“I felt like I had come back and received a hero’s welcome,” says Rev. Ronald McCann, FSSP (’18), describing his experience of returning to Thomas Aquinas College this summer to offer one of his first Masses as a newly ordained priest.

When Fr. McCann was 13 years old, his family began attending the Mass in the extraordinary from at a Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) parish, St. John the Baptist Latin Mass Community at St. Patrick’s Church in Cabot, Arkansas. “I learned how to serve both the most recent form and the traditional Masses,” he says. “The priests there were very supportive and encouraging in their guidance.”

“It was at that Mass that I felt a very strong calling to the priesthood.”

Through serving Mass almost every Sunday, listening to his pastor’s kind counsel, and praying the Rosary with his family daily, Fr. McCann soon began thinking about the priesthood. In his senior year of high school, he attended an FSSP ordination in Omaha. “It was at that Mass that I felt a very strong calling to the priesthood,” he reflects. “I wanted to find the newly ordained priests afterwards and ask them what I had to do to get where they were.”

Knowing that the Fraternity recommends work experience or pursuing a degree before entering seminary, Fr. McCann enrolled in the Thomas Aquinas College Class of 2018. While a student, his calling to the priesthood never ceased and, as he participated in the rich spiritual life on campus, grew even stronger. “The Catholic atmosphere of Thomas Aquinas College supported and encouraged my vocation through its beauty and campus-wide devotion to the Faith.”

In his senior year, he applied to the FSSP’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, Nebraska, entering immediately after graduation. Throughout his time at seminary, he noticed that he had a deepened respect for what he was learning in his theology and philosophy courses. “We had worked so hard for the truth at TAC,” he notes. “I was able to better realize all the good that was set before me in the lectures, where the truth is laid out so plainly.”

The Most Rev. Robert Reed, Auxiliary Bishop of Boston, ordained Fr. McCann this May 28 at St. Peter’s Church in Lincoln, Nebraska. The new priest soon thereafter began his first assignment — at St. Lawrence Chapel in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania — but first he returned to his alma mater to offer a Mass of Thanksgiving in Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel.

“I was so happy for the opportunity to see so many of my former teachers and tutors and give them a first blessing,” he says.