A decade ago, Toby Collins was tending to the grounds of St. Louis Roman Catholic Church in Waterloo -- a client of his landscaping business.Today, the 36-year-old, who loves Spider-Man and kite flying, will be ordained a priest and member of the Congregation of the Resurrection at the same church where he once mowed the lawn.
"I'm a young face and I'm a 'new wine,' which means I have new ideas and a fresh perspective, " said Collins, seated in a pew of St. Louis yesterday following a rehearsal of his ordination.
"The church right now is in need of young men and women in leadership roles."
Collins was born in Kitchener, but at five moved with his family to live in St. Catharines. He then moved back to Waterloo Region as a teenager.
After graduating from Wilfrid Laurier University with a degree in geography and philosophy, he worked a few jobs before starting his own landscaping business at 23.
After three years, he knew he was ready to make a career and life change.
"There was just something missing," he said. "I had a feeling I had gifts that could be better applied in other areas."
At 26, he enrolled at the University of St. Michael's College in Toronto.
And on May 11 this year he graduated with his masters of divinity from the Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Mo.
Collins will be the first priest ordained in 11 years in the congregation's Ontario-Kentucky province--one of three separate administrative areas that are similar to a diocese. He will serve in a parish in Hamilton.
His ordination takes place at 11 a.m. at St. Louis today and he'll celebrate his first mass tomorrow at 2 p.m.
The Congregation of the Resurrection is a Catholic order of brothers and priests founded in France in 1830s.
The Ontario-Kentucky province began 150 years ago when Rev. Eugene Funcken, a Prussian priest, arrived in St. Agatha.
The congregation founded St. Jerome's College in 1865.
In total, there are about 90 priests in the Ontario-Kentucky province, but as more retire, fewer and fewer are involved in active ministries, said Rev. Bernie Hayes of the St. Louis parish.
"With the decline of the number of vocations, every ordination is particularly precious,"he said.
"We look very closely at the spiritual foundation of these people and how we can develop with them . . . It's not a decision he arrived at overnight (but) I really felt the Lord was calling him."
Collins said the decision to enter the priesthood was not one he took lightly. It took time, he said, to come to the realization that he was, "very loved by God and to see God's goodness in others."
Accepting his decision also took some time for Collins' six brothers and sisters -- all of whom will be in the pews today to watch their brother's ordination.
"They just want me to be happy and I think they're a little bit tainted by others who have made this decision and not been happy," he said. "They're coming around because they see the smile on my face."
What keeps that smile on his face are the simple things that both make him human and a figure other young people within the church community can relate to.
He loves the Spider-Man movies and describes the latest instalment in the trilogy as "awesome."
He loves good food and good friends and he lights up when talking about his favourite animal-- the hippo.
"They can go unnoticed, but they have so many surprising things about them," he said, adding he visited the creatures several times at the St. Louis Zoo while he was finishing his studies.
"They give to other animals just by being themselves."
It's the balance between those lighthearted joys and the rituals and time-honoured traditions of the church that Collins sees as the future of faith.
By keeping lines of communication open and embracing new expressions of faith, the church can reach more people and help them discover their own gifts, he said.
"Part of staying relevant is that we need to be able to laugh at ourselves a bit," he said.
"You have to realize we'll never get it exactly right, but that in our trying we can find God has a sense of humour."
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