By: By Jennifer Willems

Born in Bloomington, Deacon Timothy Hepner grew up in rural Lexington as the sixth of Brandon and Karen Hepner’s 10 children. His home parish is St. Mary’s in Pontiac, which is sending two busloads of parishioners to the May 26 ordination to celebrate with him and Deacon Steffen, who also claims St. Mary’s as his home parish.

Deacon Hepner will celebrate his first Mass the next day at 1 p.m. There will be a reception for him and Deacon Steffen at 3 p.m. in the parish hall.

Father Terry Cassidy, his childhood pastor at St. Mary’s in Lexington, will be his vesting priest at the ordination liturgy. The homilist for his first Mass will be Father Tom Holloway, whose first assignment was at St. Mary’s in Pontiac.

Deacon Hepner said he started thinking about the priesthood when he was 9 years old and credits Father Cassidy as being the catalyst.

“He really connected with my family. I have a younger brother with special needs and he connected with my younger brother and that led all of us deeper,” he told The Post. “I was an altar server and he asks everyone, ‘Have you considered the priesthood?’ He’s a priest who definitely encourages vocations.”

His decision to be a priest came as a sad blow to a fourth grade friend — they were going to be inventors, he said. His fifth grade teacher laughed at him.

“What kept me going and kept me focused was Emmaus Days,” Deacon Hepner said, referring to the vocation awareness program held each summer and sponsored by the diocesan Office of Priestly Vocations.

“When I went to Emmaus Days I had a sense that this is where I could be who God was calling me to be,” he said, explaining that it was a little oasis in the midst of the usual teenage influences and distractions. “During school I felt like I was swimming upstream. At Emmaus Days I felt like I was swimming with the current.”

Deacon Hepner has studied at Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary in Winona, Minn., for three years and went on to the Pontifical College Josephinum, where he is completing his fourth year of theology. His formation during the summer has included intensive language studies in Mexico and pastoral ministry at Holy Cross Parish in Mendota, Our Lady of Guadalupe in Silvis and St. Anne’s in East Moline, and with the Hispanic community at St. Mary’s Cathedral and St. Bernard’s in Peoria.

He acknowledged that he’s not fluent in Spanish yet, but keeps working at it. Being able to preach once a month in English and once a month in Spanish at Christ the King Parish in Columbus has helped, he said.

The rosary and eucharistic adoration have been important during his discernment, as have the Mass and the sacrament of reconciliation. Deacon Hepner noted that the breviary, which he started praying in the seminary, has become a constitutive part of his being and gives him a sense of stability.

Priesthood is self-gift — “you’re supposed to make a gift of yourself” — and he said he learned how to do that first from his parents and then from the people he has served in the Diocese of Peoria.

“We do have a really great diocese and good people,” Deacon Hepner said. “People need to just keep praying for vocations.”