Seminarian Spotlight: Deacon Jacob Schmiesing

This is part of a series highlighting the stories of the men who are completing their formation for the priesthood at MTSM. To read more, click here.

As a young grade schooler, Deacon Jacob Schmiesing wrote down three things he wanted to be when he grew up. On May 16 at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter in Chains in Cincinnati, one of them will come true.

“I wanted to drive dump trunks, I wanted to fly airplanes and I wanted to be a priest,” Deacon Schmiesing recalled. “When I give the halftime talks at Minor Prophets (MTSM’s seminarian basketball team) games I like to tell the kids that I am not really interested in trucks anymore, but I love airplanes and I am about to be a priest.”

A son of Sidney, Holy Angels Parish and Lehman Catholic High School, Schmiesing had always looked up to the priests that he got to interact with throughout his upbringing. As he approached college, he took his first dip of his toe into what being a seminarian and going through the formation and discernment would look like.

“The Parochial Vicar and Chaplain of my high school, Fr. Jim Riehle (now Pastor of St. Maximilian Kolbe in Liberty Township), took a group of juniors and seniors out to Brute College Seminary in Indianapolis and that was a really cool experience to see that,” Deacon Schmiesing reflected. “He also gave me the book To Save a Thousand Souls (by Fr. Brett Brannen) and those spurred a very intense consideration and desire to enter the Seminary.”

The timing was not right for Schmiesing yet, so he went off to college at Franciscan University in Steubenville, where, through the help of then-Vocations Director Fr. Dan Schmitmeyer, he stayed connected to the discernment process as he obtained degrees in chemistry and philosophy. In the Summer of 2020, with his undergraduate education complete and the next step of his life ahead, that path opened.

“It was the Covid summer at Franciscan and we were having Mass for Pentecost out on the hill by the Fieldhouse, with the altar at the bottom of the hill,” Deacon Schmiesing remembered. “At some point during Mass, a thought came from outside of me, but it was not my thought, and it was ‘if you are going to go to the seminary, now is the time to do it.’”

Graduate school for chemistry was put on hold, but he was still keeping that in the back of his mind as he came to Cincinnati to begin the pre-theology stages of his formation.

“When I entered the seminary, I went with the approach that I am doing this for a year, but I am doing it all-in for a year,” he recalled. “If I was going to walk away, I did not want to second-guess myself. I went for the first year, that went pretty well and then as the years kept going. As I began the theology levels I had adjusted to life here and had a deep sense of peace and believed that this is what God is calling me to do.”

Beyond his work in the classrooms of MTSM, Deacon Schmiesing is also appreciative for what he has gained out in the world, whether that be in parishes, schools or beyond.

“Last year I did my apostolic at Mercy Anderson Hospital,” he recalled. “I had never really went time in or around a hospital and it was really formative and educational going in there without any knowledge or expectation of what it would be like. It gave me experience of people dealing with grief, difficult family situations, difficult medical situations and the general sense of being overwhelmed. However, you also see the difference a priest can make in those situations and I look forward to being with people through that.”

Having experienced so much of what the Archdiocese has to offer, with much more ahead, he also appreciates the bonds he has been able to build with his brother seminarians and those connections that will remain in the years to come.

“You have this understanding that many of the people here at the Seminary are going to be your coworkers and brother priests real soon,” Deacon Schmiesing observed. “To think about all the guys who were deacons when I started here, to the guys in the Propaedeutic Stage this year, I will have overlapped with a huge number of priests in the Archdiocese. Those connections will be a great asset.”

In a way, what Deacon Schmiesing aspires to be once he is Father Schmiesing is what the younger Jacob Schmiesing back in Sidney was seeking when looking towards and wanting to be a priest (and drive dump trucks and fly airplanes).

“There are many people, especially young people, who really look up to priests and put a high emphasis on what they have to say and offer,” Deacon Schmiesing concluded. “That responsibility is intimidating, but also really exciting. I have had priests who were great influences in my life, and I would love to be that influence for other young people.”