WESTON -- Deacon Paul Landi had a "God moment" while responding to a call to aid someone in septic shock.

It was 2020, and Deacon Landi had been a firefighter for three decades. As a boy growing up in the small town of Navasota, Texas, he watched firefighters come to his sister Mary's aid after she ate poisonous mushrooms growing in the front yard. He prayed that someday he'd be the man who comes to people in their worst hour and makes everything better. As a captain in the Bellaire Fire Department, his prayers had seemingly been answered -- sort of. Deacon Landi was divorced with three adult children and had been discerning the priesthood, but two dioceses in Texas had turned him down. He wasn't sure whether God truly wanted him. When he and his crew arrived on the scene, the septic shock victim was unconscious with a dangerously high fever and rapid pulse. They were stabilizing her in the back of the ambulance when there was a knock at the door. It was a priest.

"Captain, I know y'all are busy right now, and you need to take this lady to the hospital, but I'm a Catholic priest, and she's my parishioner," he said. "Will you allow me to come up into the ambulance and anoint her before you leave?"

Deacon Landi gave the priest a funny look.

"Absolutely," he replied. "Your work is far more important than mine."

During dinner at the station that night, Deacon Landi's battalion chief, himself a Catholic, reprimanded him for letting the priest into the ambulance.

"Excuse me, chief, but you're absolutely wrong," Deacon Landi said. "We might be able to save a life, but a Catholic priest has the authority from God to save a soul from hell."

Deacon Landi is now a transitional deacon in the Diocese of Beaumont, Texas, completing his final year of formation at Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary in Weston. It is the only seminary in the U.S. that is focused solely on forming men over the age of 30 for the priesthood, and since its founding in 1964 by Cardinal Richard Cushing, has formed 785 priests.

Deacon Landi spoke about his journey to the priesthood at the seminary's 44th annual Lawn Party fundraising dinner on Sept. 24. As rain pelted the big tent erected over the seminary's grassy lawn, Deacon Landi thanked the Lawn Party's hundreds of attendees for the record $420,000 they had raised for the seminary this year.

"My story and path to the priesthood is just one of many here at Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary," he said. "God has formed me and all of my seminarian brothers through our previous careers and life experiences, and he brought all of us here to this seminary because this institution understands and embraces all of our previous life experiences and formation."

As a firefighter, he said, he was God's instrument. There were times when EMTs on the scene followed every procedure but still lost patients. Other times, "whatever could go wrong did go wrong," but patients survived.

"And because of that, I've always known that God was in charge," he said.

He still thinks of himself as an instrument of God, but in a different way. He used to pray to be the firefighter who rushes into homes and saves lives. Now, he prays to be the priest who will knock on an ambulance door to save souls.

"The seminarians here bring with them a wealth of experience as husbands, as fathers, as professionals, as parish leaders," said Pope St. John Seminary board member Dan Lagan, who co-chaired the dinner with his wife Mary Anne. "When they enter the priesthood, our parishes and dioceses are strengthened from their maturity, their perspectives, and their deep commitment to the church."

The day before the dinner, he read a front-page article in The Wall Street Journal about a decline in priestly vocations worldwide. However, he said, the article did not mention the Archdiocese of Boston's increasing vocations, and the growing importance of "delayed vocations" to the church. He said that donations are crucial so that Pope St. John Seminary can continue reaching out to older men and keep tuition affordable for seminarians.

"We rely so much on your generosity," said Father Brian Kiely, the seminary's rector, "but your presence here tonight helps us to remember that we can make a lasting change on our world as we prepare priests who will serve the Lord after his own heart, so that this world that we live in might become a better place as we make Christ better known, better served, and better loved. You make that possible."

He said that, like the older men who have entered the seminary over the years, the Apostles were older men with families and careers when God called them to ministry. He encouraged those at the dinner to be "Andrew going to Peter" and tell older men in their lives that they would make good priests.

"Tonight is more than a dinner," he said. "It's a celebration of hope, a celebration of community and the impact that we can have on the world together. Each contribution, whether of time, talent, or treasure, helps us to continue the vital work of supporting seminarians and strengthening parish life throughout this country and throughout the world."

Archbishop Richard G. Henning attended the Lawn Party for the first time since his installation in 2024. In his remarks, he thanked Father Kiely for his leadership in the seminary and said that "there's something happening" in Boston and the larger church.

"You may have seen some of these reports. They don't show up so much in the secular media, of increasing numbers of people who are seeking out conversion to the Catholic Church, of rising church attendance," he said.

He said that St. John's Seminary in Brighton has seen some of its highest enrollment in decades as more and more young men are discerning the priesthood.

"I mention all this also to say how grateful I am for your support of priests and of seminarians and of the church, of your own faith and your engagement in your parish life," he said. "Because you've been the ones who have been there through the lean years."

Archbishop Henning was joined by Bishop Emeritus Robert Deeley of Portland, Maine (whose brother Father Kevin Deeley is on the seminary's staff), Bishop Robert McManus of Worcester, and several of Boston's auxiliary bishops, including Vicar General Bishop Mark O'Connell, Bishop Cristiano Barbosa, and Bishop Peter Uglietto, who was one of three people to receive the seminary's Pacem in Terris Award. Father Kiely said that the award, named for the final encyclical of Pope St. John XXIII, is given to "people who embody what it is to be a disciple, what it is to be a believer, what it is to be committed, and most especially, what it is to be a faithful servant of the Gospel."

John and Gretchen LaRossa, who have both served on the PSJXXIII Board of Trustees, also received the award. Bishop Uglietto received it for his lengthy ministry within the seminary, where he served as rector, spiritual director, and teacher. Father Kiely said the award was "long overdue."

"He prepared men for the priesthood by his words, his actions, but most of all by the life he led and continues to lead," he said.

In his remarks, Uglietto, who also celebrated his 74th birthday on Sept. 24, said that the work of PSJXXIII is the work of establishing peace on Earth.

"It was a special privilege for me to serve in this institution for so many years, to participate in the work of priests in the nation, to be part of the effort of God's own desire to provide for the spiritual needs of his flock by preparing men for priestly ministry," he said.

He said that every person in the world has the Holy Spirit "nudging, tugging, pulling" at their heart.

"We know that the spirit of Christ is ever at work as God calls each one of us from the moment of our birth to embrace a particular role, a role that he has not given another, in his great plan to save the world," he said.