Bros. Dan Glass and Tom Junis Make First Profession

Bros. Dan Glass and Tom Junis Make First Profession

On August 16, Don Bosco’s 203rd birthday, the New Rochelle Province welcomed Bros. Dan Glass, SDB, and Tom Junis, SDB, as new members consecrated by temporary vows.

Bro. Dan Glass, SDB

The two new brothers pronounced their vows before Fr. Tim Zak, provincial, during a Mass celebrated in the Marian Shrine chapel at Haverstraw, N.Y. It was an intimate Salesian gathering of 35 concelebrants (including two priests from Philadelphia, friends of Bro. Dan), 2 deacons, 12 coadjutor brothers, 8 clerics, our 2 prenovices, 9 Salesian Lay Missioners, and numerous family members and friends of Bros. Dan and Tom.

Bro. Tom Junis, SDB

The new brothers had made their novitiate in Richmond, Calif., under the guidance of Fr. Tom Juarez, master of novices, and his assistant Fr. John Puntino.

Bro. Dan and Fr. Tom are the first newly professed in the New Rochelle Province since 2015.

Bro. Dan Glass’s Vocation Story

Bro. Dan was born in 1988, the son of David and Maryann Glass. He was raised in Malvern, Pa., where the family are members of St. Patrick Parish. His pastor greatly influenced his vocation. He says, “Fr. Chris Redcay’s dedication to serving the parish and his love for the parishioners was a beautiful example of what it means to be a pastor, to be devoted to Christ and the service of our brothers and sisters.”

Dan served as a Salesian Lay Missioner in South Sudan in 2012-2013, first at Wau and then at Maridi. He came to know Don Bosco and the Salesians through the SLM discernment process, orientation, and living in community with and ministering alongside the Salesians for a year.

Continued discernment after his return from South Sudan led Dan to apply to join the Salesians. He was accepted as a candidate and entered the formation program in Orange, N.J., in August 2015. He says: “At first it was the apostolate that attracted me to the Salesians. I loved the missionary focus and my time in South Sudan. I also loved working with young people while I was the director of religious education at St. Patrick Parish.

Bro. Dan Glass makes his profession, backed by his parents Maryann and David Glass. 

Deacon Juan Pablo Rubio and Fr. Dominic Tran served as witnesses.

“As I continued to learn what it means to be a Salesian and what the spirit of a Salesian is, in addition to the apostolate, it was the joy, loving kindness, and prayer life that continued to inspire me.”

The novitiate in Richmond is adjacent to Salesian College Preparatory High School. So, in addition to doing what novices do—learning to pray, studying the Constitutions, living the vows, etc.—he found tremendous joy in “spending time with the students and feeling at home in the school environment. In a year that gave me extra time to pray and explore the Salesian Constitutions, it was a huge blessing to have Salesian College Prep next door to help me see the spirit and joy of the Constitutions come alive. With the students present each day, we were able to see everything that we had been learning come to life.”

Bro. Dan is thinking of eventually returning to the foreign missions. He says, “It is my hope to appeal to the Rector Major as a missionary to the nations; to help build the Salesian Congregation where it is in most need, to bring the Gospel and to serve the young and the poor who are most vulnerable and in need.”

Bro. Tom Junis’s Vocation Story

Bro. Tom is the youngest son of Mitch and Margie Junis. He was born in Bloomington, Ill., in 1992. The family are members of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Bloomington.

Bro. Tom earned a degree in early childhood education from Illinois State University in Bloomington before becoming a Salesian candidate at Orange on January 1, 2016. His education studies had already led him to St. John Bosco, whom he took as a patron for his educational efforts. In college, he says, “I really found my passion for working with young people and finding God in them and wanting to give my life to God.”

The influences in shaping Bro. Tom’s vocation were his parents, the religious sisters at the ISU campus Newman Center, and the late Msgr. Greg Ketcham, a Salesian Cooperator.

The sisters at ISU also urged Tom to contact the Salesians at the University of Illinois Newman Center in Champaign. He did so and started meeting monthly with Fr. Bill Bucciferro to learn more about Don Bosco and the Salesians. Fr. Bill encouraged him to go on the Don Bosco bicentennial pilgrimage to Turin in 2015 as part of his discernment. That pilgrimage was decisive; he prayed that Don Bosco let him know whether he was called “to offer my life to God and the young … as a Salesian.” On his return to the U.S. he learned of his acceptance as a candidate—the sign he desired.

Bro. Tom Junis makes his profession, backed by his parents Margie and Mitch Junis. 

Frs. Abe Feliciano and Bill Bucciferro served as witnesses.

For Bro. Tom reports that “the best part of novitiate was accompanying the students [of Salesian College Prep] when we had free time and really finding God in them and trying to be a sign of God’s love to them, and the friendships made with them.”

Eventually, he says, “I would like to work at a boys and girls club or youth center to be able to use my gift of working with younger kids and use what I learned from my Early Childhood Education degree. I would also love to specialize in college campus ministry; it was something I enjoyed during my time in college, and I know our Salesian charism would bear great fruit in a college setting in helping students discern their vocation.”

Our Life Project: To Share God’s Love

Fr. Tim Zak’s homily pointed to Don Bosco’s encounter with Bartholomew Garelli on Dec. 8, 1841, as a key moment in his discernment of his life’s project of making service to the poorest young people his apostolic passion. The lessons that John Bosco learned from his mother—God’s presence all around him in nature and in daily life—and his training at the Convitto Ecclesiastico in how to be a priest assisted him in this discernment of what God was asking of him.

Fr. Tim said: “As it was for Don Bosco, so it is for us and the young today. God calls each of us, with all the specificity and peculiarities of our lives. This is an action of God’s grace, to which we respond with our gifts and our limitations.” As indicated in the first reading of the Mass (from Isaiah 44), Fr. Tim continued, God calls Israel and us with a personal love; he calls us to be his “darlings” and to convey his love also to others who “are waiting for the announcement of the Good News, for someone to share with them the living water [of the Holy Spirit]. Our vocation is oriented toward mission. We don’t live for ourselves. . . . God’s love is to be shared with them also.”

This is the vocation of Bro. Dan and Bro. Tom and of every Salesian, as it was Don Bosco’s.

More photos from the celebration: https://pix.sfly.com/k5Rgg5

Newly professed Bro. Dan Glass (2nd from left) and Bro. Tom Junis (2d from right) 

with (l-r) Deacon Eddy Chincha, Fr. Tim Zak, Fr. Tom Juarez, and Deacon Juan Pablo Rubio.

Salesian priests and brothers gather around their newly professed confreres after Mass.