Father Daly Brings Contemplative Spirit to Diocesan Priesthood

July 21, 2023

by Jim Thorp

NOTE: This article appears in the Summer 2023 issue of the DISCIPLE newsletter. If you aren't receiving DISCIPLE, call the parish office at 763-497-2745 to register or update your contact information.

When Father Michael Daly joined our parish in March, it was big news: St. Michael became the only parish in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis with three full-time priests. Why St. Michael? It is currently the largest parish in the archdiocese by Mass attendance, with plenty of work for another priest to do—plus rectory space and resources to support another priest.

From Father Daly’s standpoint, St. Michael has additional advantages. He and Father Brian Park are longtime friends who were once part of the same Companions of Christ small group, and he was ordained with Father Joe Zabinski. Our parish also provides an ideal setting for him to return to diocesan life and parish priesthood following a period of religious monastic discernment.

A diocesan priest is ordained to preach the Gospel and administer the sacraments in a specific geographical area called a diocese. A religious priest, on the other hand, lives in community and witnesses to a particular way of following Jesus.

“I was exposed to religious priests in the missions and continued to ponder religious life while I was still in seminary,” Father Daly says. “I visited a few different communities, including the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, where Gabe Thorp is heading this fall, but none of them seemed to be the right fit. It was clear in my discernment that I was called to the priesthood, so I was encouraged to continue with seminary studies and became a diocesan priest.”

The tug toward religious life never left his heart, however, and more recently he was given the opportunity to visit St. Hugh’s Charterhouse, a Carthusian monastery in England. The Carthusians are a contemplative monastic order, meaning that they live together with their brothers and apart from the world, spending a great deal of time in solitude, silence, and prayer.

Father Daly has always been drawn to more contemplative types of prayer. From the time he was 11 years old, his parents served as medical missionaries at an orphanage in Honduras and brought their four children with them.

“Seeing the stark poverty, the orphaned children, and the violence and need in these villages made a big impression on me,” he says. “The place I found I could process what I was seeing was in Adoration before the Holy Eucharist. I experienced deep peace there with Jesus because only
Jesus could make sense of all the fear and suffering, and I began to pray for God’s vision, to see Jesus’ eyes in the poor around us.”

His intention was to become a doctor like his father, but God’s call to priesthood persisted throughout his undergraduate studies at the University of Notre Dame, and the intimacy in prayer has only deepened his desire for God alone.

“God gives us our passion to discover His mission for our lives, for when your deep conviction meets the world’s deep needs, that is where God is calling,” Father Daly says. “St. Augustine reminds us that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. Even in our fast-paced world, the desire of the human heart remains the same. We are all called to live a contemplative rhythm in our hearts and homes, since, as St. Isaac of Ninive said, ‘The staircase that leads to the Kingdom is hidden in the depths of your heart.’”

It’s not surprising, then, that Father Daly brings a touch of Carthusian spirituality to his parish ministry.

“The Carthusians motto is, As the world turns, the Cross stands firm,” he says. “May our hearts be open to hear and courageous to respond when, in the silence of our heart, God speaks. May our parents and family be supportive to encourage in their children a joyful and wholehearted yes to follow Jesus.

“In the monastery you can’t travel the world to ‘find yourself,’ and there are no mirrors to see yourself, for we see the image of God within us each moment. So let us adore Jesus within the Eucharist, within the poor, and within our soul. As St. Catherine of Siena says, ‘He will provide the way and the means, such as you could never have imagined. Leave it all to Him, let go of yourself, lose yourself on the Cross, and you will find yourself entirely.’”

WANT TO GO DEEPER?

Want to grow in prayer and the life of the Spirit? Plan to attend the next Awakening Retreat, scheduled for September 15-17, or our next Silent Retreat, set for October 27-29.