Deacon Alexander Marquette remembers a question then-Father Michael Izen asked during a Mass at St. Timothy Catholic School in Maple Lake.
“He asked: ‘How many of you young men want to be priests one day?’” said Deacon Marquette, who was a third grader at the time. “That’s where the desire in my heart sort of awakened for the first time and I knew in that moment: I want to be a priest.”
That experience served as a guidepost along Deacon Marquette’s path, which includes the 25-year-old preparing for his ordination to the priesthood with four other transitional deacons at a 10 a.m. Mass May 31 at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul.
“Looking back now … it’s really amazing to see that that little boy’s desire is going to come true.”
Deacon Marquette grew up in Maple Lake, with St. Timothy as his home parish. He became an altar server at St. Timothy as a fourth grader, alongside a group of his close friends.
“There were three server spots at Mass, and there were five of us who would try and serve as many daily Masses as we could.” What developed, Deacon Marquette said, was “this boyish competition of who could get to the sacristy first to serve daily Mass.”
“It just shows how the Lord draws us to himself through our own desires, like the boyish desire of ‘I want to be there first so I can do something,’ but that something was serving the holy sacrifice of the Mass,” Deacon Marquette said.
Deacon Marquette said attending Sunday Mass with his parents, Kevin and Peggy, and his younger brothers, Zachary and Samuel, “really anchored our week as a family.”
“It almost felt like we were missing something if one of us wasn’t there, or if one of us had to go to a different Mass,” he said.
Consistent in his family’s life of faith have been mealtime prayers and going before the Blessed Sacrament for guidance. “Whenever some problem would come up, the first place we would go to is prayer as a family.”
When his extended family learned of his interest in becoming a priest, Deacon Marquette said, “They started nicknaming me ‘Father Al’ and (have) made me lead grace and meal prayer at every family function for the last 10 or 15 years.”
“They have been supportive since day one, sometimes playfully, but most of the time very seriously,” Deacon Marquette said.
His parents “have been immensely supportive” of his pursuit of the priesthood; he said he “can’t thank them enough” for their wisdom, help, and “listening ear.”
He’s also grateful for his brothers, their close relationship, and the conversations they have. “We have a little intellectual sparring, philosophical or theological arguments around the dinner table even now, when we’re all three (at) home. … I know they both have my back, they’re both very supportive with what I’m doing.”
Soon after Deacon Marquette became an altar server, he joined the parish youth group, participating in events like Winter Blast “which is an all-night youth lock-in” and Extreme Faith Camp during the summers. He found “a lot of friends who knew Jesus; and coming to know Jesus myself personally in prayer, that fed a lot of my vocation.”
After attending St. Timothy Catholic School through eighth grade, Deacon Marquette went on to Maple Lake Public High School, graduating in 2017. He was confirmed while in high school.
“The Lord put a group of catechists in my life that saw someone they could invest a lot of time and energy in — and they did just that,” he said. “I found a love of teaching there.”
This love of teaching was something that his mother, a teacher, also inspired in his heart. After he was confirmed in 10th grade, Deacon Marquette said, “I came back, and I helped teach faith formation my junior and senior year of high school with the same group of catechists.”
Deacon Marquette entered St. John Vianney College Seminary (SJV) on the University of St. Thomas’ campus in St. Paul, where he graduated in 2021 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy and Catholic studies and a minor in Spanish. He then entered The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, where he is obtaining a Master of Divinity degree.
He continued teaching: a year of confirmation classes at Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Paul while in college seminary and faith formation at Immaculate Conception in Columbia Heights, his teaching parish, while at The St. Paul Seminary.
“I love sharing the faith,” he said. “I love teaching people how to pray, how to find God in their own heart.”
Opportunities to travel and see the faith through different lenses also encouraged Deacon Marquette toward the priesthood.
During his second year at SJV, Deacon Marquette traveled to the Dominican Republic with fellow seminarians. “We worked for nine days at an orphanage serving the kids” which included helping to cook and clean, and playing soccer with the children in the evenings.
He also spent a summer in Mexico City, “encountering the poor, serving in soup kitchens, (and) visiting (the) Our Lady of Guadalupe” holy site. He said he was inspired by “how beautiful of a faith” those he encountered had and how he wanted to share that faith.
Deacon Marquette said that as a priest, he hopes to go on pilgrimages, “seeing the global Church” with parishioners. Having traveled to Italy, Greece and Turkey, he is interested in “helping people see all the places in the world where the events of the Bible took place. … It’s such a big picture and it’s all real, it all fits together.”
Deacon Marquette — who said “the Lord has drawn me close to himself in holy Mass” — is particularly looking forward to celebrating the Mass as a priest.
“I’m just really excited, almost giddy, about saying Mass for the first time. And not just the first time, but the second time, and the third time, and every day for the rest of my life.”
He is similarly looking forward to celebrating the sacraments and he prays “to sanctify the Church, the parish that I’m placed in, and the people that the Lord is entrusting to my care.”
Deacon Marquette hopes to bring his love of cooking and the outdoors into his ministry as a priest.
“I love making food,” Deacon Marquette said. He learned “how to cook almost instinctually” from both his grandmothers and from his parents — “I don’t like using recipes.”
He also enjoys “getting outside, whether that’s just in the backyard or going out to a state park” and wants to share “creation and how wonderful it is” with parishioners.
“I look at the life of Jesus and what did he do? He took the disciples up the mountain. He took them out fishing and he gave them food,” Deacon Marquette said, adding that he seeks to follow this example, “getting people outside, and feeding them good food, and teaching them about God.”
Listening to the Lord’s call is how Deacon Marquette intends to proceed in his own ministry. Reflecting on his journey to the priesthood, he said, “This is what Jesus asked me to do, this is what Jesus wanted me to do. And I said yes, and I’ve just trusted that if this was indeed what he wanted me to do, then I could do it.”
