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 | Sirbas nurtured vocations with prayer, example - 12/16/2009
From The Catholic Spirit
By Pat Norby
December 15, 2009
Just as all roads lead to home, all conversations with Bishop Paul Sirba’s family lead to the modest Bloomington home where his parents, Helen and the late Norbert Sirba, nurtured his vocation.
Helen Sirba has good memories of her son, Bishop Paul Sirba, both as a child and as a supportive adult. At right is Bishop Sirba’s sister, Cathy Kelly. - Photo by Dave Hrbacek / The Catholic Spirit Bishop Sirba was ordained bishop of the Diocese of Duluth Dec. 14.
Helen, 85, said her son Paul “was always easy to take care of . . . although he probably didn’t get as much attention” as the other children. He was the fourth child born in five and a half years, after the Sirbas waited nine years to conceive, she said.
Father Joseph Sirba, a priest of the Duluth diocese, is the oldest, followed by John, Cathy (Sirba) Kelly and then the bishop.
“He was always good in school,” both at Nativity of Mary in Bloomington and Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield, where all the Sirba children attended school, Helen said.
In high school, the bishop ran cross-country, played tennis and had the lead in at least one school play, she recalled. He also was the winner in a Minnesota state piano contest and, at graduation, he was presented the Thomas More Medal, which is given to the senior boy whom classmates name as the person most exemplifying Christian life.
Each spring, Bishop Sirba has planted the garden around the Blessed Virgin Mary statue in the backyard of the Bloomington home and “he is always aware of what I need,” Helen said.
When asked what she and Norbert did to nurture two vocations, Helen recalled gathering her children together in the living room and praying a decade of the rosary together. She gestured toward a picture above the fireplace in the living room and said, “I read that if you have a picture of the Sacred Heart in your home, God will bless your family.”
She also recalls entertaining Msgr. Arthur Durand and Msgr. Richard Schuler in that same living room. The priests greatly influenced the two Sirbas toward priesthood.
John Sirba said that God certainly blessed him and his wife, Sue Ann, and their seven children.
“We grew up in the ‘Leave It To Beaver’ family,” John said. “[My parents] didn’t do great things, but they did what they did well. They put forth the environment to let [two vocations] grow.”
Just one year after Bishop Sirba was ordained a priest in 1986 for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, his brother, Joseph, was ordained for the Duluth diocese.
Although both brothers discerned a vocation to the priesthood, they took different paths, said Father Joseph Sirba, pastor of St. Edward in Longville and St. Paul in Remer.
“Paul went right from high school to college to the seminary,” he said, while Father Joseph went from studying political science to electrical engineering to philosophy, before entering the seminary to study for the Diocese of Duluth.
“In our home, our vocations were welcomed,” Father Joseph said. But with a five-year difference in their ages, the two brothers didn’t discuss their vocations with each other, he added. By the time both of the siblings were teenagers, they had different groups of friends, he said.
While growing up, the Sirbas spent time every summer vacationing at Ideal Beach on Lake Miltona in Alexandria, and Sundays were always a family day, Father Joseph said.
“After Mass, we would go to a park and go hiking and have a picnic,” he said. “We would do that a lot.”
Those vacations and Sundays spent hiking, swimming and exploring nature sparked an interest that continues today. The brothers have regularly spent time hiking and fishing together in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and state parks near Father Joseph’s parish assignments.
Their sister Cathy, who with her husband, Scott Kelly, has six children, said she has seen God’s handiwork in preparing her brothers for their vocations.
As a teenager, Father Joseph started a successful campaign to bar the city of Bloomington from paving a road through Highland Park, which showed his passion for the community and organizational skills needed by a pastor, she said. And Bishop Sirba honed his public speaking skills in high school, through speech, debate and performing in school plays.
“He loves playing the piano,” she said, as she showed off her brother’s baby grand piano, set up in a former bedroom of the family home.
The bishop also plays a good but gentlemanly game of tennis, said brother John.
“I would be the one who’d throw the racquet and he’d look at me like, ‘What’s up with that,’” John said. “And we’d have some great rivalries in table tennis.” While John played with strength and determination, his younger brother used calm and finesse, a skill common in leaders.
Elizabeth Sirba, a daughter of John and Sue Ann, said in a letter to The Catholic Spirit that her “Uncle Father Paul” has been an inspiration to her and all her cousins.
“Since I was a little girl playing duets on the piano with Uncle Father Paul, . . . he has taught us by his example and ever-caring words to trust in our Lord Jesus,” she wrote.
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