Michael J. Novick, 33

First assignment: St. George, Tinley Park
Education: St. Christopher School, Marist High School, Lewis University
Parents: Barbara and Edward Novick
First Mass: noon May 20 at St. Christopher, Midlothian

Michael J. Novick spent six years working in warehouses before starting at Mundelein Seminary. “I worked mostly in the area of receiving merchandise and preparing it to ship to our stores and other special orders. Now I am preparing to receive orders, but these are holy,” Novick wrote in a pre-ordination questionnaire.
Novick did not begin to consider the priesthood until he was in college. He and his brother were going somewhere in a car with Father Jim Presta, then associate pastor at St. Christopher. “He told us, until there’s a ring on your finger from a significant other, don’t rule ordination out,” Novick said. “He planted a seed in my head, kind of eased it in, but it took a while to bloom.”
Novick finished his degree in mathematics and took the warehouse jobs, where he could use his statistical expertise and indulge his liking for physical labor. But he knew there was something missing in his life.
Then he attended the ordination ceremony for the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1994, and he was hooked. He knew four of the 12 ordinandi, one of whom was a high school classmate.
“It was a fabulous day,” he said. “It was such a celebration of love.”
A year later, he decided to enter the seminary.
Novick said pastors must preach about vocations to the priesthood and religious life from the pulpit to encourage young people and their families to consider it, especially after the scandals involving priests.
“We as future priests have to help their families understand that it’s not a bad thing,” Novick said.
He looks forward to teaching in parish schools, and he has plans to do some ecumenical work in his assignment at St. George.

Other ordinations:
Jo-Andre Beltran
Paul Duy Duc Cao
Mark Greschel
Miguel Angel Martinez Figueroa
Michael J. Novick
Edward J. Pelrine
Kombo Livingstone Peshu
Robert William Schultz Jr.
Paul Charles Stein
Walter Antonio Yepes Galvis