Father Aaron Wessman

There was a Glenmary priest. He was the former Superior General, the former president of Glenmary, he served eight years as President. Father Jerry Dorn, who is now passed on, finished up his time serving as Glenmary’s president. He took a sabbatical for about six months and went to St. John’s where I was working as the janitor of the theology department. I didn’t choose that. I just needed to help pay for school. They assigned me to be a janitor, to clean floors and whatever else, at the theology department. That happened to be the place where Father Jerry Dorn was given residence during his sabbatical.

I didn’t know the man at all, but it was the way I encountered him. He kept walking over my clean floors. So, it was always my joke. I’m like, “Who is this guy?” You know? I just cleaned. It was Minnesota in the winter so...not winter, but the fall at least. Dirty. Get those court floors clean; mopping and sweeping. He kept walking over them.

Well, he and I started up a relationship. And it became my relationship with a priest, one that has been the most intimate, the closest that I’ve ever had in my life. Great friend, wonderful mentor. We would sit and talk about faith for four, five, or six hours straight. And that is not an exaggeration.

I think about maybe my sophomore and junior year, where I would have spent four, five, six hours going out with friends and just doing the college thing. Now it was sitting up with this guy late into the evening talking about faith, forgiveness, reconciliation, who Jesus is, who God is.

He always had this saying, “God wants to go to the places where you think you are the ugliest inside, and He’s not afraid to go there with you. In fact, if you let God do that, He’ll walk to those places inside of you and heal them, and love you in and through those places.” And that really stuck with me. That was the first time I heard that being articulated in such a way. 

So I began to look at those places in my own life, asking questions like, “Where do I need healing and reconciliation?” And then also, “What is God asking of me in my life?”