Deacon Michael Hill
Episode 301
4 NOV 2024
He ran track in high school, competed in intramural sports, later taught himself golf, and coached youth league basketball and baseball, winning a regular season and a post-season title. In 2011 he was ordained to the Diaconate in the first class in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas. He has been a 4th degree member of the Knights of Columbus, and this year was awarded a Licentiate in Canon Law from St. Paul University in Ottawa, Ontario. He is a Board member of Deacons Of Hope, a pro-life, non-profit ministry.
Notable guest quotes:
“I was actually born to an unwed mother, and she was in the hospital, they immediately baptized me because they didn’t think I was going to make it through the evening. And eventually I was adopted out to a loving father and mother.”
“My mother is actually someone who was raised Protestant and then joined the Catholic faith after the marriage that they had. So, they made sure that I went to Mass every Sunday and on all the holy days of obligation, taught me how to pray, taught me how to say the rosary, then made sure I went to a Catholic elementary school and went there all the way to sixth grade and then because of transportation issues, I went to a public junior high and high school but remained in what was back then called CCD and then eventually went to Rockhurst College, which is a Catholic Jesuit education university.”
“What I would do when I was coaching them, I would try to find maybe an area where they hadn’t received any training, where God had given them a gift to do and maybe somebody hadn’t seen it, or somebody hadn’t explored that yet. And so, I would take my time and teach them to say, ‘Hey, you can do this really well. You can do that really well. That seems to be a gift from God’.”
“I’d be forgiving of errors especially at that age because sometimes they tried too hard, but it was always about trying to find a way where I could incorporate God and the gifts that God had given these young children to play and then give them encouragement.”
“He said, ‘Remember when he hit that free throw? … It’s great… when he went back to school, he stopped being picked on, he stopped being teased, his grades went up a full letter grade in every subject in his school, and he was quote unquote one of the guys… He then believed in himself too’.”
“I didn’t care about the score it was all about… making sure the kids had a positive experience and the kids learned how to be better people, made sure they shook hands and always wished well to the other team because I said, ‘If you’ve played hard and you’ve used God’s talents to the best of your ability, you can look that other person in the eye and shake their hand and congratulate them, knowing you did the best you could to win the game’.”
“I went into his office, and he took the form, signed it, reached into his top drawer and picked out an already created letter of recommendation for me and then personally delivered it to the chancery and then six years later I was ordained.”
“I had doubts; you know, Satan picked on me all the time and as my spiritual advisor said, ‘Obviously there’s something great God wants you to do and Satan’s trying to thwart Him’.”
“If you do see a sign and you do really feel God’s calling you this way and doors open and everything happens then, for sure, you’re going that way and just abide.”
“I think that people understanding that there’s something bigger than the football game or the baseball game or the basketball game, there’s appreciating the talent that God has given these people to do these things to keep us entertained and distracted for an hour or two or three is really important, especially in the society we’re in right now.”
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