Harley Davidson motorcycles and biker’s leathers aren’t what traditionally comes to mind when one thinks of a Catholic Priest.
However, that is what the members of St. Gabriel the Archangel Parish got with the arrival of their new Parish Priest, Father Mariusz Sztuk.
“I love motorcycles,” he said, “By trade I am mechanic before I went to the seminary, so my father was a mechanic, my brother. I just love motorcycles.”
Sztuk tries to get out and ride whenever he can.
One time he was asked by a friend of his, a fellow priest who was sick, to go and perform mass at a convent.
He, of course, decided to ride his motorcycle to get there.
“I had my leathers, my chaps, all of that,” said Sztuk.
The nun who met him when he arrived turned him away.
“She says come back tomorrow we are waiting for a priest to say mass,” he said.
“That was a funny story,” said Sztuk, “People judge you by how you look like.”
He does wear the proper robes and vestments when he is working.
Sztuk has ridden all across North America.
Some of the highlights of his travels include riding to Florida to officiate at a wedding and going as often as he can to the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally in South Dakota.
For Sztuk, the best part of travelling, especially to Sturgis, is the people that he meets.
“You sit around the fire and then you have all kinds of people,” he said, “Christians, non-Christians, bikers, enthusiasts, whoever,”
The conversations can range from religion to politics and beyond. Sztuk really enjoys the time to meet people and these conversations often give him stories and inspiration for his homilies during services at the Parish.
When he takes to the road, his final destination and where he had originally planned to go don’t always match.
“I remember one year I was going to Nanaimo and I ended up in Alaska,” said Sztuk.
“It’s not the destination it’s just the journey,” he said.
In this sense, Sztuk compares his travels on his motorcycles to his life as a priest.
“You just keep going, you meet people,” he said, “it’s just a journey which keeps you going…how you travel, how you use your life gift.”
His favourite way to travel may be by motorcycle but his calling as a Priest has taken Sztuk around the world.
He was born in Poland. He went to seminary there and was ordained in 1994.
In his ministry, Sztuk said his biggest joy his hearing confession and helping his parishioners.
“If somebody comes to the priest they have a problem and they need to talk to someone,” he said.
“You’re sitting in the confessional and sometimes you hear stuff…you wonder what to say to make that person feel loved,” said Sztuk.
He said that after prayer words come to him and he can feel the Holy Spirit work through him.
“You just wonder how did I come up with this?” he said.
This sense of working with people on their journey and with their struggles is something he really enjoys.
He worked for one year in Poland before he was moved to India for seven years before moving again, this time to Tanzania where he worked for two years.
Sztuk again moved working for one year in the Philippine’s before coming to Canada in 2001.
Here in Canada he has worked in Calgary and Taber.
“That vow of obedience comes into the picture,” he said, “They call you and they tell you and you just move.”
Sztuk said that he can’t pick a favourite place he has worked. Each parish has its own unique sets of challenges and successes.
“You can’t take one cookie from the jar, you have to take more,” laughed Sztuk.
India was more philosophical than his upbringing in Poland.
Sztuk feels he was set up for his whole priesthood by what an older priest told him when Sztuk went to him for confession.
“He said to me ‘if you’ve come here to help us pack your luggage and go home’,” he said.
Sztuk was shocked by that statement and asked what that priest meant.
“He said ‘if you came to work with us then we can do something’…and that set me up for my whole priesthood,” said Sztuk.
This idea of working with his parishioners has stayed with him.
Here in Chestermere Sztuk plans to work with his parishioners to build a church, not help them.
“Wherever you go, you go there to work with those people because you have something to learn from them, they have something to offer to you but also you have something to offer to them,” he said.
Sztuk said with that perspective it doesn’t matter where you go, you are always going to work with them.
When he moved to Africa it was the landscapes and natural beauty that were stunning and faith affirming.
“If somebody will tell me that God didn’t create it then who did?” asked Sztuk.
Now that he is here in Chestermere. Sztuk’s main goals are for the parish to build its own church, they are currently holding Sunday services at St Gabriel the Archangel School, and to recruit younger members onto the Parish council.
