Four seminarians to spend next year serving in Detroit-area parishes as they prepare for priestly ordination, God willing, next May
DETROIT — Three members of the Companions of the Cross took a major step on their journey toward the priesthood Sept. 14 — fittingly, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
Deacons Michael Horianopoulos, CC, Sebastian Muggeridge, CC, and Eran Amarasingha, CC, were ordained transitional deacons by Archbishop Marcel Damphousse of Ottawa at the Visitation Chapel in the Companions’ formation house in northwest Detroit.
The three newly ordained deacons — who also made their final profession of vows the previous day — joined Deacon Tim Silver, who was ordained May 17, 2024, by Bishop Scott McCaig, CC, of the Military Ordinariate of Canada at St. Timothy Parish in Toronto, with Deacon Silver being on a slightly different academic timeline than the rest of his ordination class.
The four transitional deacons will spend the next year serving in Detroit-area parishes as they prepare for their priestly ordination — Deacon Amarasingha at St. Aloysius in Detroit; Deacon Horianopoulos at Our Lady of Sorrows in Farmington; Deacon Muggeridge at Corpus Christi and St. Scholastica parishes in Detroit; and Deacon Silver at St. Anastasia in Troy.
Sept. 14, the feast day for the Ottawa-based Companions of the Cross, will always be an important date for all four men, but their journeys to the priesthood started many years ago, encouraged by faithful families and supportive friends along the way.
Deacon Horianopoulos of Kitimat, British Columbia, first had an inkling of becoming a priest in 2015 while attending a retreat called Missionary Disciples Today and heard talk from a married man who spoke about the liberation that comes from embracing the vocation God is calling each person to answer.
“He spoke about giving God permission and said, ‘God, I want you to do whatever You want me to do,’” Deacon Horianopoulos said. “And then the love of his life fell into his lap. So I thought, ‘Well, I want to be whatever God wants me to (be). And not 15 minutes later, during one of the sessions, I was looking at an icon of Jesus and suddenly this call to the priesthood came very suddenly, and it was quite amazing.”
Deacon Horianopoulos was raised Catholic by a Catholic mother and a Greek Orthodox father, so it was fitting an icon played a role in his vocation.
Entering the Companions in 2015, Deacon Horianopoulos was sent to “The Farm” up in northern Ontario for the propaedeutic year, and that’s where he got in touch with his spirituality before heading to Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit for his studies.
“What changed about me during this whole time was my capacity to be with God quietly in prayer,” Deacon Horianopoulos said. “One of the hardest things is to really sit quietly, and while sitting there, to really believe that I’m a beloved son and to dwell on that and let that flow into more of my life.”
Deacon Muggeridge, of Ottawa, Ontario, got his first call to religious life during a retreat hosted by the Companions and had a profound experience in confession.
A few years later, the calling came back again, after he finished his university studies and went into nursing.
“I was working as a nurse in a hospital in Ottawa, and my life had totally turned around because I realized God loved me and wanted to have a relationship with me,” Deacon Muggeridge said. “I started to pray, asking God to show me what He wanted from me, and it came to point where I realized a call to religious life and the priesthood is something that doesn’t come from me, it comes from God. So I said, 'God, if You want me to do this, put this desire in my heart.'”
Deacon Muggeridge said it was the Companions’ charism for evangelization that drew him specifically to the religious community.
Throughout his formation process — including two retreats to the storied “Farm,” Deacon Muggeridge realized there was a particular reason God was calling him specifically in this time and place to become a priest.
“I think we need to be evangelized; the world needs people to share with them the Gospel message of Jesus. I joined this community to share this message,” Deacon Muggeridge said. “Now more than ever, with faith declining in this world, but now more than ever because there is an openness in this generation, a generation so far removed from the faith that once again they are open to hearing a message they were never told. I believe God has chosen me for whatever reason to share my story, my coming back to the faith, to use me in my own brokenness and poverty to be a witness to the world.”
Deacon Amarasingha grew up in a Catholic town in the predominantly Buddhist Sri Lanka, so he had plenty of teachers, nuns and priests who encouraged him to consider the priesthood.
But it wasn’t until his family moved to Toronto when he was 14 before he really took personal ownership of his faith and was considering the priesthood when he was in university.
He started thinking about the diocesan priesthood when he came across the vocations director for the Companions of the Cross, who asked him to a “Come and See” event and consider the religious community.
Deacon Amarasingha went out of politeness, not thinking he would change his mind about going the diocesan route.
Turns out, everything would change when he got to experience the brotherhood of the Companions.
“When I did a 'Come and See' with them for a week, they seemed to like each other and get along, so I thought, 'OK, this is good,'” Deacon Amarasingha said. “But the more the week went along, the more it felt like home. I felt their spirituality, the four pillars of the community were already part of my life: Eucharistic, Marian, magisterium and charismatic. All of those were already in my life, so it felt like a good fit. It seemed like God was already leading me in this direction, even though I didn’t know it at the time.”
Deacon Amarasingha said the intimacy he feels with the Lord in prayer is the biggest part that has changed about him in formation. Throughout his discernment, he never felt any major doubts he was on the correct path; rather, every encounter, from street evangelization to academics, gave him confidence that God desires for him to become a priest.
“I think God is calling me first of all as a gift, not because I’m particularly talented in a special way, but He is prepared to use me and us me for His glory,” Deacon Amarasingha said. “He has given me a lot of gifts that will help me. I’m gifted in preaching; I have a heart for evangelization; I’ve done a lot of street evangelization in the summer and campus ministry in the fall. I have a heart for drawing souls to Christ.
“That is a big need for the Church right now, since the Second Vatican Council, all the popes and bishops have been speaking for the need for evangelization,” Deacon Amarasingha added.
Deacon Silver of North Bay, Ontario, said it was a powerful experience at a spiritual conference that got him first interested in religious life, but he wasn’t sure, so he joined NET Ministries, where his sister was already a minister.
Deacon Silver was assigned to Australia for a year when he first got the inkling that he was called to the priesthood, and a particular vocation to the Companions was suggested when he was ministering in Ireland.
“There was someone I knew in Ireland who suggested to me the Companions because I was Canadian, but I never heard of them before,” Deacon Silver said. “But when I looked at their website, I knew these were the people I was looking for because they were about evangelization. I was already part of an evangelizing ministry, and I wanted to be in a community that helps people encounter Jesus in a powerful way.”
Getting a jumpstart on diaconal ministry on his cohort, Deacon Silver said serving at the altar, being so close to the Eucharist during the consecration and holding up the chalice during the elevation are the greatest parts about being a deacon, along with proclaiming the Gospel and giving the Benediction.
“I’m right there, next to the priest,” Deacon Silver said. “Being able to kneel next to the priest, to lift the chalice, it’s pretty profound.”
But as a transitional deacon, he knows it’s only the next step.
“Really, it’s a foretaste of what I’ll be able to do at one point: celebrating the Mass, lifting the Host and presenting Our Lord to the people. It’s what we’re all praying for, what we all dream of doing for God,” Deacon Silver said.
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