Derek Curnow said the happiest moment of his life was at St. Peter the Fisherman Church in Mountain Home at 14 years old. It was also the moment Curnow said he “wanted to die.”
At the Easter Vigil Mass in 2004, he was baptized, confirmed and received his first holy Communion.
“I just felt the presence of God so strongly in that moment,” Curnow said. “I knew that at that moment I was as close to God on this earth as I would ever be. All I wanted to do was be present with him in heaven.”
Curnow, 22, has been accepted into St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver to become a priest for the Archdiocese of Denver, making him the first St. Peter’s parishioner to join the priesthood in at least 30 years, pastor Father Stan Swiderski said.
Curnow said he came from a family of Protestants, but his mother struggled to find a church where the two belonged.
“I was raised believing there was a God, but we didn’t owe him anything,” Curnow said. “As long as you didn’t drink in excess or kill anyone, you were a good person.”
He had his first experience with the Catholic Church during Easter Sunday Mass when he was 12 years old in Georgia.
“They were doing this kneeling thing and the bowing thing. You could tell by the attitude of the people there this was a special place, a place of reverence,” Curnow said. “With me it was really just the direct hand of God showing me that reverence in the holy Eucharist. Of course, I had no idea what it was at the time.”
When the family moved to Mountain Home in 2003, Curnow joined St. Peter the Fisherman Church and was shown what a “good Christian community can be.”
“Everything about my life was changed from the way I interacted with other people, from the way I viewed myself,” Curnow said.
At St. Peter, he was a part of the Catholic Youth Ministry and a founding member of the Columbian Squires, a youth chapter of the Knights of Columbus. For the past two years, he’s attended Regis University in Denver and finally accepted God’s calling, he said.
“I had started to hear the call again during the Year of the Priest (in 2010),” Curnow said. “The sky didn’t open up and the doves didn’t descend from heaven, but it was the little things.”
Curnow’s mother, Debra Curnow, who became Catholic a year after her son, said she sometimes struggles with her only child becoming a priest, but “gave up Derek to God awhile ago.”
“I always knew in my heart that God had his hand on Derek and was leading him in a specific path and I believe that now,” she said.
Though it will be seven years before Curnow becomes a priest, he’s said he’s eager to lead souls to God.
“I just want to love his people and his Church the way he loves them,” Curnow said.
