New faith formation director eager to ‘work together in the vineyard’
Dcn. Jay VanHoosier assumed the role of Director of Faith Formation for the Diocese of Owensboro on July 6, 2021. COURTESY OF DCN. JAY VANHOOSIER
Faith formation, believes Dcn. Jay VanHoosier, “helps people understand how to be disciples of Christ with our gifts.”
Dcn. VanHoosier took on the role of director of the Diocese of Owensboro’s Office of Faith Formation on July 6, 2021, after serving as Director of Faith Formation and Worship at St. John the Baptist Parish in Newburgh, Ind., since 2014.
He told The Western Kentucky Catholic in a July 15, 2021 interview that as he gets to know the parish catechetical leaders around western Kentucky, he wants to let them know that “we’re all in this boat together.”
“Our goal for all the baptized is to make disciples,” said Dcn. VanHoosier, “and disciples are simply people who proclaim the Gospel at all times.”
He also believes in collaboration, and wants the parishes to view him as “a support, as someone walking with them – but not doing their job.”
Dcn. VanHoosier said he hopes to build up faith formation opportunities for children, youth and adults of varying ages.
Another goal of his will be to strive for greater unity among the baptized – including non-Catholics – but among fellow Catholics as well.
“We’re all called to reach out to our brothers and sisters in the Christian faith,” he said. “Jesus doesn’t want disunity. This person, by virtue of baptism, is still my brother or sister in Christ. We need to find that commonality!”
He emphasized that this is not “proselytizing,” but “evangelizing,” since “they’re still our brothers and sisters on the journey; we can still work together in the vineyard.”
“We’re in a state of disunity,” he said, adding that “we need to believe that Creed we say every Sunday.”
Dcn. VanHoosier explained the reason for his passion for Christian unity: he was raised Southern Baptist himself, and joined the Catholic Church through his experience with Catholics who genuinely lived the Gospel message.
The Catholics he encountered as a non-Catholic young adult were “very open, welcoming, (and) not belittling my faith but inviting me to participate in theirs.”
And in college, when he took an elective course called Christian Thought, “that’s when I first learned the word ‘transubstantiation,’” said Dcn. VanHoosier.
He sat in his dorm room and had what he calls a “born again moment.”
“I thought to myself, ‘My God, he meant what he said,’” said Dcn. VanHoosier.
He read John 6, in which Jesus stated that “I am the bread of life,” and in that moment, “I became Catholic in my heart,” he said.
From that point he has had a “deep love of the Eucharist,” since “the Eucharist calls me to be Eucharist to other people. I literally become what I eat,” he said. “That comes from the very earliest Church Fathers.”
Dcn. VanHoosier said his door is open and he is eager to help others understand how everything else in the Christian life flows from the Eucharist, as “the source and summit of our faith,” quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
“I am a person of deep faith – and I believe that deep faith is meant to be shared,” said Dcn. VanHoosier.
Originally printed in the August 2021 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.
