Diaconate ordination will bring seminarians

Two seminarians of the Diocese of Trenton – Wynne Kerridge and Brian Meinders – will mark another step on their journey toward the priesthood when they are ordained transitional deacons by Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., in St. Mary of the Assumption Cathedral, Trenton, May 20 at 10 a.m.

Ordination as a transitional deacon generally occurs after a seminarian has completed several years of study in theology and takes place usually one year prior to priestly ordination. As deacons, they will be ordinary ministers of Baptism, and will be able to preside at weddings, assist the priest at Mass, proclaim the Gospel and preach, as well as preside at wakes and funeral services.

As men who are committed to becoming priests, transitional deacons make a promise of celibacy.

Wynne Kerridge credits life experiences for prompting vocation journey

After traveling on varied roads, both physical and spiritual, throughout his life and meeting numerous people along the way, 29-year-old Wynne Kerridge will reach a milestone on his vocation journey when he is ordained a deacon May 20.

Born in Dallas, Texas, Kerridge grew up in a practicing Presbyterian-Anglican family with his parents, David and Lisa Sinak and siblings Cotty Hilman, and Slade and Calder Sinak. It was during his freshman year at Princeton University, where he majored in economics and had a number of friends who were Catholic, that he was prompted to explore the Catholic faith.

“After a year of intense study and prayer,” he said, “I was convinced of the truth of the Catholic Church,” and was received during his sophomore year into full communion with the Catholic Church Dec. 8, 2013, in the Church of St. John the Baptist, Allentown. The day, he said, was the first anniversary of the first Mass he ever attended.

After more than two years of growing spiritually through the Aquinas Institute, the university’s Catholic campus ministry, Kerridge entered a small religious order in southern France in the Fraternity of St. Joseph the Guardian where he remained for 18 months.

He then transferred to the Diocese of Trenton and entered Mount St. Mary Seminary, Emmitsburg, Md., in 2018, where he is pursuing Master of Divinity and Master of Arts degrees in Church history. He has served several summer parish assignments including St. Michael, Long Branch; Our Lady of Good Counsel, Moorestown; Visitation Parish, Brick, and St. Charles Borromeo, Cinnaminson.

Looking ahead to this year’s diaconate ordination and expected priestly ordination next year, Kerridge describes his vocation as “inspired by the two great commandments of love of God and of neighbor, upon which hang all the law and the prophets.”

Kerridge described ordination to the transitional diaconate in terms of marriage, when “the Diocese of Trenton and I make permanent commitments to each other. … I am committing myself irrevocably to a life of celibacy, ecclesiastical ministry, obedience to the bishop, and praying the Divine Office every day for the rest of my life and the Diocese commits to me. As those who marry commit themselves for the rest of their lives on their day of marriage and then they live that out for the rest of their life, so too shall I live out the commitments made at my diaconal ordination for the rest of my life.”