A calling of faith runs in the family for Aurora/Giltner priest
Father Mark Seiker of Aurora will be honored Sunday, May 19, on the 40th anniversary of his ordination as a Catholic priest.
A celebration is planned at St. Mary Catholic Church in Aurora, beginning at 5 p.m.
Seiker reflected recently on his journey of faith, which he said began with a model of Christianity in his childhood home. His mother was one of 13 children, with two of her brothers serving as Catholic priests. His father was one of five children, with one called to be a religious sister, thus faith and family were always closely intertwined.
“My parents lived their faith well,” he recalled. “They made sure that prayer was a part of our daily lives and as I was growing up, any time we went to family gatherings, whether it was on mom’s side or dad’s side, there were priests and sisters involved in the gathering. It was somewhat normal to be around priests and sisters, which had an impact on me early on.”
In the summer between his second and third grade years, Seiker’s parents decided that though they were devoted to their faith, it wasn’t enough.
“They wanted to send us to a Catholic school, so they bought the only new car I ever remember, a 1965 Chevy Impala station wagon, and started driving us 23 miles into Lincoln to a Catholic school,” he recalled.
Seiker spent his formative educational years at Cathedral of the Risen Christ grade school, and later Pius X High School. He then spent a year at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln studying electrical engineering, before entering the seminary, following in the footsteps of his older brother, Steve. Though Steve would later discern that God was calling him to a different profession, brothers Dan and Leo did answer a call to the priesthood, now serving churches in Lincoln and Friend, respectively.
“While I was a senior in high school and a freshman at the university, my brother Steve was in the seminary in Erlanger, Kentucky,” Seiker explained. “He would come home for vacations and for summers and I got to meet his seminary friends. They were all kind of ordinary college kids, but there was a sense of peace and a sense of calm about them. That was an important time in my life because I had been around priests and sisters at mass, at school and in the family, but I didn’t know how you move from being a single man to being a priest. Meeting seminarians was a key part of that timeframe.”
After 3-1/2 years in the seminary, Sieker was ordained a deacon in 1983, and on May 26, 1984 he was ordained as a priest.
His assignments as a priest began at St. Michael Church in Hastings, where he served as an assistant priest while also teaching at Hastings St. Cecilia School. His next stop was Nebraska City, where he taught religion at Lourdes School for two years before moving on to Bellwood, located between David City and Columbus, where he served two parishes and also taught religion at Aquinas High School.
After three years in Bellwood, Seiker was assigned to be in McCook, where he was pastor of St. Patrick Church along with serving two small missions in Hayes County. During that time he was also building superintendent of the grade school.
After three years in McCook, Seiker moved to the other end of the state in Beatrice, where he spent the next 12 years in a similar role as priest and building superintendent of the Parish Catholic Grade School there. His next assignment was a 10-month transitionary role in Imperial and Wauneta, before beginning his longest single tenure serving as priest at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in North Platte.
In 2021, Seiker came to Aurora, where he serves as priest for St. Marys Church here, as well as St. Josephs in Giltner.
Asked to summarize his 40-year journey, all devoted to churches in the Lincoln Diocese south of the Platte River, Seiker said his focus has always been on celebrating the seven sacraments, and on teaching.
“Teaching is a key part of the church,” he said. “If the church is not teaching we need to rethink that because Jesus said ‘Go out and teach them what I have taught you.’ We’re called to do that as priests, so teaching, whether that’s in the homily at mass, in Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA), in individual religion classes in the Catholic schools, or preparing couples for marriage, it’s all part of our work in the life of a priest.”