By TARA CONNOLLY Staff writer
Bishop of Allentown Alfred Schlert will administer the Sacrament of Holy Orders Saturday, June 2 while celebrating the Rite for Ordination to the Priesthood and configure Deacon John Hutta, II to the person of Christ.
Deacon Hutta, 29, a parishioner of Sacred Heart, Palmerton and the son of John Hutta and Diane Hutta, will become a priest for the Diocese of Allentown at 10:30 a.m. during the solemn ceremony that is open to the public.
Deacon Hutta has five siblings – Angela, Vanessa, JoLynn, Shawn and Skyler. “I also have many nephews and nieces, whom I adore very much,” Deacon Hutta said.
Thoughts about entering the priesthood surfaced during grade school while he served Mass, and the thoughts became stronger in high school when he join Diocesan youth groups and prayed more consistently.
“In high school and college, I went to meet the Bishop and seminarians for dinner nights, sponsored by the Diocese. There I met some of the seminarians – guys who were interested in philosophy and answered the questions I had about the faith. In prayer and through those encounters with the seminarians and priests in my life, I saw men who loved Jesus Christ and lived their lives for him. I began to think that I might be able to live that life as well,” said Deacon Hutta.
“Since that time, he has brought me a long way and planted in my heart a great love for him, a love that I desire to share with others. I look forward to serving the people of the Diocese and sharing with them the pearl of great price, which I have found.”
Throughout his journey to the priesthood, Deacon Hutta said, his family and his parish families of the former SS. Cyril and Methodius, Coaldale and Sacred Heart helped fostered his vocation.
“My family is originally from the coal regions of this beautiful Diocese and they have coal dust in their lungs as I do too over these past years. It is a precious diamond of our Diocese and a wonderful place. I love my family very much. They also fostered my vocation, even though I come from a divorced family. My family have supported me in my faith and I think through my witness of my faith life has strengthened theirs also in some ways,” he said.
As ordination draws near, Deacon Hutta is eager to take on the roles in his ministry as a priest: presiding at Mass, administering the sacraments, absolving sinners, anointing the sick, proclaiming and explaining the Gospel, and bestowing blessings.
“I hope to share in the generative love of spiritual fatherhood. I will be able to teach, to provide, to protect and to love my spiritual family. I will become an instrument used by God to share his paternal love to each of his children here on earth,” he said.
“I will bring spiritual infants and adults into the world through baptism; I will put food on the table for my spiritual family in the gift of the Eucharist by the power of the Holy Spirit; I will bless the marriages of my children and see their children; I will mend the scrapes and bruises of sins in reconciliation by Christ working through me; I will pray with and to my sons and daughters and read to them to sleep through Anointing of the Sick. I will be a father in sharing in the fatherhood of God, and I know I cannot lose sight of this wonderful gift,” said Deacon Hutta
In addition, he is anxious to immerse himself in parish life and build relationships with people to grow closer to Christ in their everyday lives.
“This is essential for all of us to be striving to allow Christ working in us and through us with the Holy Spirit. It comes down to prayer, relationship, love, mercy and hope,” he said.
Deacon Hutta attended schools in Tamaqua and graduated from Tamaqua Area High School. He graduated from Alvernia University, Reading in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. At St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, Philadelphia, Deacon Hutta earned a master of divinity degree in theology.
Bishop Emeritus of Allentown Edward Cullen will be the principal concelebrant. Priests for the Diocese of Allentown and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia will be concelebrants.
