Newly ordained looks forward to celebrating Mass, hearing confessions — the two sacraments that helped pave the way for priesthood
While attending eucharistic adoration as a teenager, Father Michael Laugeman heard a question that he couldn’t ignore: Have you ever thought about becoming a priest?
More than a decade later, God’s interior prompting has led the 27-year-old to the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis, where Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski ordained him to the priesthood on May 23.
Father Laugeman is a native of St. Louis and grew up in Immaculate Conception Parish in Dardenne Prairie. He entered Kenrick-Glennon Seminary after graduating from St. Dominic High School in O’Fallon.
At his ordination, Archbishop Rozanski called upon God to bless Father Laugeman with the graces that come with sacred ordination in order to serve God’s people in His Church.
He enters the priesthood at a time and in a world that faces profound tensions between the Gospel’s timeless call to love amidst the complex challenges of modern life, the archbishop said in his homily.
Noting Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas” (“Magnificent Humanity”), released two days later on May 25, the archbishop said that the Holy Father will speak on “one of the most crucial issues of our time — whether the path we choose will uphold human dignity given to us in Christ, or allowing artificial intelligence to debase our humanity, giving into selfishness, pride and isolation from one another.”
Two thousand years after St. Paul’s farewell discourse, proclaimed in the first reading from Acts (20:17-27) at the ordination Mass, the Gospel still illuminates our minds with Jesus’ teaching that helps us to understand the fullness of our humanity, the archbishop said.
“This is the world that Deacon Michael will be ordained to serve as priest, being reminded always to stay grounded in the Gospel and the example of Jesus who came to redeem humanity in his great love,” he said.
In reference to the Gospel reading from John (15:9-17), the archbishop noted that the root of all ministry is self-sacrificial love, the kind Jesus preached and demonstrated on the cross. It is this same total, life-giving love that He commands His apostles to live out, he said.
“Only by following the Lord Jesus in His example of love can we live the ministry of priesthood in its deepest meaning,” the archbishop said. “What Jesus tells his apostles, he also tells Michael and each one of us: ‘The command I give you is this: that you love one another.’”
‘What is happening to me?’
Father Laugeman began discerning his priestly vocation as a student at St. Dominic High School. Prior to that, he experienced a deepening of his relationship with God while on an eighth-grade Luke 18 confirmation retreat at Immaculate Conception in Dardenne Prairie.
Still fresh from the Luke 18 retreat, he began attending adoration with his father and reading the Bible. He started thinking more about what he wanted to do and how he wanted to spend his time in high school. One night at adoration, he felt a stirring in his heart, and “the Lord just said, ‘Have you ever thought about becoming a priest?’ I got into the car with my dad that night, and I just started crying. And I was like, ‘Dad, like, what is happening to me?’”
Toward the end of freshman year, Laugeman had backed away from his faith and stopped attending adoration and youth group. He quickly realized that the peace and joy he once felt was missing, and by sophomore year, he was back on track.
Since January, Father Laugeman had been serving as a transitional deacon at St. Charles Borromeo and St. Peter parishes in St. Charles. In that time, he said that preaching was the biggest way in which he gave of himself during the assignment.
“There’s a real entrustment that’s being given to you,” he said. “You have people who come out and say something to you about a homily that you preached and they were deeply moved, or were in tears. And you’re like, wow — this is beyond me. It’s such a huge joy to be that herald of the Gospel and to be creative with it, too.”
Now as a priest, Father Laugeman said he is looking forward to celebrating Mass and hearing confessions — the two sacraments that also had the most profound effect on his life and helped pave the way toward a priestly vocation, he said.
“What a gift to be able to be a dispenser of those graces, a conduit of God’s mercy in that way,” he said. “It’s in those two sacraments that the Lord’s heart is really revealed to His people. To be able to celebrate those things every day — it’s very humbling.”
Father Michael Laugeman embraced his godmother, Tammy Pich, after he was ordained to the priesthood May 23.
A gift for the Church
Family, friends and well-wishers received first blessings from Father Laugeman after Mass in Boland Hall. His mother, Teresa, described the moment her son was ordained as a gift — not just for her, but for the entire Church.
Newly ordained Father Michael Laugeman gave his first blessing as a priest to Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski after Mass.
When the archbishop laid his hands on her son’s head and said the prayer of consecration, “I looked at (my husband), and I’m like, this is it — we’re parents of a priest,” Teresa said.
Before Mass, Teresa visited the Blessed Sacrament chapel for quiet prayer and asked God to bless her son’s future priesthood. As a convert to the faith, she said she’s also learned a lot from her son as he’s gone through his own priestly formation.
While in prayer, Teresa told God, “He’s your priest, and hope you let me have some involvement, like you did with your own mom,” she said. “I’m trusting you to take care of him and lead him in his next assignment and his entire priesthood. I’m so grateful — I just can’t believe our family has been given this gift.”
The Laugemans said they have always supported their children’s vocational calling — no matter what that may be — as long as God is at the center of it.
“Like my husband has always said, as long as you put God first, I don’t care if you’re flipping burgers,” she said.
Father Michael Laugeman
Age at ordination: 27
Family: Parents, Matt and Teresa Laugeman; brother, Jacob
Home parish: Immaculate Conception in Dardenne Prairie
Education: St. Dominic High School, bachelor’s of philosophy from Cardinal Glennon College, masters’ in arts and divinity from Kenrick School of Theology
First Mass of Thanksgiving: 2:30 p.m. Sunday, May 24, at Immaculate Conception in Dardenne Prairie
After his priestly ordination, Father Michael Laugeman walked out of the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis to learn of his first assignment as a priest at Sacred Heart Parish in Florissant.
