The Record - For the longest time, Deacon Wally Dant Jr.’s life unfolded as predictably as he and his family hoped it would.

His father wanted him to attend the University of Notre Dame, so as a boy growing up in New Haven, Ky., he regularly hopped the train to Louisville to attend classes at St. Xavier High School. Sure enough, Notre Dame followed, and he left the university with a degree in aeronautical engineering.

After a job with the Bendix Aerospace Corp. in South Bend, Ind., Dant’s engineering career led him to United Parcel Service and to jobs around the country.

Wally and Barbara Dant lived in Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Georgia before the expanding UPS operations in Louisville brought them back to Kentucky. When Deacon Dant retired in 1997, he was vice-president of air operations for the company’s ever-expanding hub at Louisville International Airport.

And even retirement began as Deacon Dant had long anticipated it would.

“I was always close to church, always involved,” he recalled in an interview this week. “I liked going to church as a young person and still do, of course. I grew up with Father (Frederick) Gettlefinger, a devout German priest, and you learned the catechism, you knew about the faith. So from my early days and throughout my life, I’ve always been close to the church, even through all the moves.”

Deacon Dant, a pleasant, avuncular figure with a gentle face and eyes that crinkle when he smiles, had thought about joining the permanent diaconate decades ago. But the frequent moves and the pressures of work put that off for a while.

“I thought about it for years,” he said. “I have a brother-in-law who is a deacon, and a close friend from down home became a deacon. I convinced myself years ago that one day I would be a deacon, too, but with all the travel the time was never right. So I decided to do it when I retired.”

Deacon Dant was ordained to the diaconate in 2001, and a few months later, the predictable pattern and fabric of his life was torn asunder.

Barbara Dant died of emphysema in 2002 at the age of 61.

“We celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary in the hospital,” the deacon said.

For months after her passing, Deacon Dant wondered and wandered — “I flipped and flopped around for about six months,” is the way he explained it. “I was lost; I didn’t know what to do.”

Oddly enough, in the months long before Barbara’s death — when life without each other was still unponderable — the Dants had a conversation about what might happen if one or the other crossed the bar.

“She was a golf fanatic,” he recalled, “and she said she’d like to move to Florida and play golf the rest of her days.”

And Deacon Wally Dant told his wife that, God forbid, if something happened to her, he’d like to become a priest.

This Saturday at 11 a.m. in the Cathedral of the Assumption, that’s exactly what he will become.

Deacon Dant and Deacon Jeffrey Hopper will be ordained to the priesthood. And for Deacon Dant, he’ll become a priest with five children and 20 grandchildren — a priest who will have walked through most of the same lifetime experiences of those he will lead.

And he’ll also become a priest at an age — 66 — when most people are thinking of retirement, something Deacon Dant has already done once.

“When I told my children (about becoming a priest) they were shocked to begin with, but they’re all happy about it now,” he said. “It’s kind of funny, but when I reported to the seminary, two of my sons took me and checked me in. Usually, when I was taking them to college, it was the other way around.”

Anyone returning to the classroom after being away for four decades would find it a little daunting. Deacon Dant was no exception.

He reported to Sacred Heart School of Theology in Hales Corners, Wis., to start down the road to ordination, the road to another life.

“I had my college behind me, had my formation for the diaconate, so I just had to spend two and a half years at the seminary,” he said. “It’s a seminary for men of second careers. The average age is 49, so I wasn’t the oldest by far.”

Still, those seminary years began with a rocky start.

“The first three weeks I had no idea what I was doing,” he said. “I’d been out of school for 40 years, but it turned into a great thing. It was scary, though, for those first few weeks.”

And it was an especially depressing time early on, when the anniversary of his wife’s death rolled around.

“I was feeling pretty melancholy; I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. Then something miraculous occurred.

“I remember coming back from Communion, and Jesus said to me ... I just heard his voice, and he said ,‘Wally, I’ll take care of Barbara. You take care of school.’

“After that, the greatest calm came over me,” he said. “I had a test soon after and I did pretty well, so my confidence began to grow. And I must say that I enjoyed every class I took. I didn’t enjoy the tests or the papers, but I did enjoy the classes, and most importantly I really liked and appreciated the spirituality courses.”

Deacon Dant said he realized “there was a big gap from where my spiritual life was and where it needed to be.

“Those classes really helped to improve that,” he said. “I see things so differently now. Christ is in my life all the time. I see people and nature differently, and I’ve learned that we all have our crosses to bear. I’ve also learned that priests are human — we had quite a menagerie of guys up at seminary.”

Deacon Dant’s first assignment as a priest will be at St. Augustine Church in Lebanon, Ky., and Holy Name of Mary Church in Calvary. His Mass of Thanksgiving will be at 1:30 p.m. May 27 at St. Aloysius Church in Pewee Valley, Ky. There also will be a Mass of Thanksgiving in Lebanon, but the date is yet to be determined.