‘You’ve got to be kidding me, God’

On June 25, the newest priest of the Archdiocese of Portland will be a former electronics technician born and raised in the town of Lebanon, east of Corvallis. Deacon Dustin Busse may have small town roots, but he traces the start of his vocation to a moment in St. Patrick Cathedral in Manhattan.

In his late 20s, confronting both outer and inner noise and chaos, he sat in the gothic church during a business trip. He’d been chasing everything the secular world was telling him he needed. Even though successful in worldly terms, he felt desolate. He’d neglected his faith since high school.

“My heart was crying out for help to our Lord,” Deacon Busse has written. “It was in that moment that I felt a consolation that changed my life. I felt peace, a peace that I didn’t even know I was looking for until I felt it.”

He sees the St. Patrick’s moment as an eruption of grace. He thinks of the words of St. Augustine: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

The New York moment was more of a conversion than a call to vocation, but the latter would never have come without the former. He returned to confession and Mass.

“Active ministry at my parish, silent moments with our Lord in front of the Blessed Sacrament — in slow but consistent ways I was centering my life back around the faith,” Deacon Busse said.

He was considering the vocation of marriage when he was surprised by the call to priesthood.

“My first reaction went something like, ‘No way, you’ve got to be kidding me, God,” he wrote. But through prayer and spiritual direction, he knew he owed it to God to try.

Entering seminary formation brought great peace. He was happy to grow as a Christian and as a leader. He served as student body president for collegians at Mount Angel Seminary. For graduate theological study, he was sent to the North American College in Rome.

Deacon Busse spent a pastoral year as a deacon at Christ the King Parish in Milwaukie where he taught and served.

In electronics repair, he had loved working with people and helping them solve problems — something a priest does all day. He looks forward to more of that.

He was raised in an outdoorsy family and has played many team sports. Deacon Busse, an avid snowboarder, told the Sentinel last year that time on snow-topped mountains is an opportunity to “give thanks to God for the beauty of the environment.”

While studying in Rome, he spent one Christmas break on a pilgrimage/snowboarding trip to Engelberg, Switzerland, home of the monks who founded Mount Angel in Oregon in 1882.