PHOTOS | ‘His Greatest Love Was Jesus’: Monsignor Michael Glenn Center Dedicated to Serve Holistic Formation
- André Escaleira, Jr.
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The new facility at St. John Vianney Seminary in Denver inspires seminarians to holiness through discipline and brotherhood.
Despite frigid temperatures, dozens of donors, seminarians and archdiocesan staff gathered together Friday to warm, inaugurate and bless the newly completed Monsignor Michael Glenn Center at St. John Vianney Seminary in Denver.
The facility, which broke ground in March 2024, features a soccer field, exercise machines, and a basketball court, offering seminarians an updated space to care for their physical health and well-being, replacing the century-old building they had been using for exercise. Given the seminary’s growth in recent years, the need for a larger, dedicated space for physical fitness became all too apparent.
“I’m very excited for everyone there now and for all the seminarians who will be able to use it. I wish I was still a seminarian! It would have been fun, would have been great to use it,” Father Jose Delgado, a recently ordained alumnus of St. John Vianney, said with a chuckle. “Our physical health and self-discipline are important, and I think sports and working out, they help so much for one’s own self-discipline and physical health. They help us to serve for as long as we possibly can and to be the healthy priests that the parishioners deserve.”
With the Monsignor Michael Glenn Center, seminarians will now have a space to better care for their bodies as well as their souls.
“The whole point of formation is for us to conform ourselves to Christ. And I think it's important for us to recognize that when we say conformity to Christ, it's not just purely a spiritual conformity,” said Cody Bliss, an archdiocesan seminarian studying at St. John Vianney. “If we see Christ as humanity lived most excellently, it's not just something that revolves around prayer. This is why we have the pillars of formation. And a huge aspect of the human formation is, do we take care of ourselves? Do we treat our bodies as temples? Do we treat them properly?”
“This complements a lot of the other missions and training grounds of the seminary,” added Deacon Daniel Rivas, who will be ordained to the priesthood this spring, after studying at St. John Vianney. “For example, time in the library sharpens our minds. The time at our parishes sharpens the heart. Time in the chapel sanctifies the soul. But what can be overlooked is that all this starts with a body that's healthy and that's strong, carrying us through these tasks. So I think in this way it's a huge enrichment to our formation.”
In fact, such recreation seems to have been ordained by God for the good of his people, as Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila pointed out at the beginning of the liturgy to bless the Glenn Center.
“God has given us our physical powers in order that we may serve him joyously, and help one another, and by discipline, in accord with the law of God, make our body fit for every good work,” he said, opening the blessing ceremony. “God, therefore, approves of recreation for the relaxation of the mind and the exercise of the body. Care of our bodies fosters mental well-being, and we more readily establish friendly and amicable relations with people.”
(Photos by Neil McDonough)
Both Bliss and Deacon Rivas expressed excitement over the new potential for “friendly and amicable relations” within the seminary community, now that the seminary has an updated facility for recreation.
“The Glenn Center also provides a time of community with the brothers outside of the classroom,” Deacon Rivas explained. “Healthy competition can strengthen brothers, and study is crucial, but I think this space provides the opportunity to be human again and to enjoy each other's presence face-to-face in competition, doing the same hobbies and interests together.”
The Monsignor Michael Glenn Center will not only draw the seminarians closer in brotherhood, but also deeper in faith, Father Daniel Eusterman, a formator and professor at the seminary, added.
With its beautiful design, the Glenn Center fits into the aesthetic of the John Paul II Center for the New Evangelization, which takes its inspiration from Christ the King Chapel, designed by Jacques Benedict in the 1920s and 30s — an intentional choice, Father Eusterman explained.
“From that chapel, little seeds of different pieces of architecture start to grow out. You have the extension of the hallways for the dormitories. Now we see the Prophet Elijah House for retired priests. The archbishop’s residence, the cardinal's residence, all of these buildings are drawing their seed from the chapel,” he said. “And what's at the heart of the chapel? The altar and the tabernacle. So, we might think that this is a new center for formation here at this gym. And I would say, ‘No, it's not.’ The center of formation of this campus, of this seminary, of all of our work here is the chapel.”
Every aspect of the seminary’s formation, Father Eusterman emphasized, is meant to lead back to Jesus Christ, present in the Eucharist.
“The main goal here, and I think what is revealed in this architecture, is to see that this gym should lead you straight to the altar. This gym should lead you straight to the altar and to the tabernacle, where God is glorified. And the altar then becomes the center for every building on this campus: the classrooms where we study, where we teach, the other areas where we walk, where spend time together, where recreate and where we rest,” he said. “This gym is meant to be an extension, a reminder, and a point of reference to the center of our very life, which is Jesus. So may this gym glorify God yet more, in a way that God has not yet been glorified on this campus because of its use. So men, use it. Use it well.”
Even the new facility’s name was intentionally chosen to inspire seminarians and point them to Christ, dedicated in honor of Monsignor Michael Glenn, rector of St. John Vianney from 2001 to 2013. An avid outdoorsman, he strove to integrate physical wellness into his spiritual life, encouraging the seminarians he guided to do the same.
After his time in the seminary, Monsignor Glenn was assigned as pastor of three parishes on the Western Slope, where he served as a beloved shepherd of souls.
“He truly was everybody's friend. He had that personality. He took time to know you personally, know your challenges, know your issues, know your family, and each time you went to one of his Masses, and he gave a homily, you left with a message. And in my case, I left with a task, something I need to work on and improve,” said Dudley Mitchell, a longtime friend of Monsignor Glenn’s. “Then if you were lucky enough to have Confession with him, he had an ability to understand you and come back to you in a manner that just really helped you. … When you were in the presence of Monsignor Glenn, you could feel the presence of God. I mean, when you were with him one-on-one in the quiet, you felt the presence of God carried with him everywhere he went. It was quite amazing.”
Monsignor Glenn was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2016, which would claim his life three years later, in 2019.
“I walked with Michael and accompanied him in the time of his battle with cancer, and he was heroic. He surrendered to it, he trusted in the Lord, and there was a very real and deep peace about him, even in the last few weeks of his life,” said Archbishop Aquila, who counted the former seminary rector among his friends, having met Monsignor Glenn when he was seminarian. “Seeing his trust, his confidence in God and in living out the Gospel, and really seeing all of the blessings that he had received. And yes, his life was lived well, it was lived fully, it lived with deep energy, and he loved the mountains and all, but his greatest love was Jesus, and the priesthood was his first love, and being a faithful priest. In that, he gave great witness to all of us, what it means when we put our lives into the Lord, into the hands of the Lord.”
Through the witness of Monsignor Glenn, the new recreation center aims to inspire seminarians even as they perspire, helping them draw nearer to Christ body and soul — an effort that would have been impossible without the generous support of so many faithful across the archdiocese.
“Thank you wouldn't be enough,” Bliss remarked. “It's an incredible testament to the people that made the gym happen and their realization of the whole person that is the priest and the importance of that that shouldn't be forgotten. I'm excited to use the gym to its full capacity.”
“So we join together in great gratitude to our donors, to everyone who had a hand in this, but of course we give all thanks and glory to God for what he is doing on this campus here as it continues to grow, as it continues to form young men for the priesthood, so that God might be glorified and we might be saved in the process,” Father Eusterman added.
“We lift up our hearts in great gratitude today for Monsignor Glenn, and for the gift of his life, and the gift to his priesthood,” Archbishop Aquila concluded. “We also lift up our hearts in gratitude for all of our seminarians, both in St. John Vianney and in Redemptoris Mater Seminary. We are truly blessed with the vocations that the Lord is providing to our archdiocese. And so, we give thanks to God for all of that, for our donors. And we pray that this will be here in another 100 years.”
