Deacon Phil Grant went home again
By Paul A. Barra
PAWLEYS ISLAND — When the Deacon Philip M. Grant becomes a priest next
June, he may be the oldest ever ordained for the Diocese of Charleston.
In fact, he was too old to train for the priesthood for the Archdiocese
of Atlanta, where he lived and worked for 18 years before entering the
seminary in September 2000.
“The archbishop traded me to Bishop Baker for a draft pick and two
younger seminarians to be named later,” Deacon Grant joked. “I went from
a nearly 3,000-square-foot house with vaulted ceilings to an 8-foot-by-15-foot
room overnight.”
Grant’s house was the result of a successful career selling major food
equipment worldwide. He has a master’s in business and owns patents in
the citrus industry, including the one that produces the orange juice we
buy in the supermarket. Even so, his commercial successes left him with
an itch he couldn’t quite scratch, not even with volunteer work on the
archdiocesan vocations awareness board and as president of the Atlanta
Serra Club.
“I knew I eventually had to do something for the church. When my parish
priest convinced me to study for the permanent diaconate, I agreed,” the
deacon said.
In his very first semester of the diaconate program his company downsized
and Phil Grant agreed to an early retirement buyout. He was nearly 60 and
his plans for the future suddenly became crystal clear.
“Every door except one closed,” he said. “The Holy Spirit was working
overtime.”
He entered Blessed John XXIII Seminary near his birthplace in Boston
and reentered a life he hadn’t known in decades, a life of study and regimen.
At first, the change was surreal, leaving him wondering where he was bound
and how he hoped to get there. He soon got back into the groove of studying,
he said, and the restrictions on his movements proved only slightly harder
to reconcile.
“I thought I’d miss the traveling the most. As regional manager, I
went at will, setting my own schedule. But now I never even think of it,
and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been,” Deacon Grant said.
He is also happy with the support of Bishop Robert Baker and the Diocese
of Charleston. Deacon Joe Cahill, associate director for the Office of
Vocations, said that Grant is not only the oldest transitional deacon in
diocesan history, as far as can be determined, but that “Phil continues
to be an inspiration to me and all others who know him.”
Since his parents are 88 and 90 respectively, Bishop Baker flew to
Massachusetts to ordain Phil Grant to the transitional diaconate so that
they could attend the solemn ceremony. Avon, the site of John XXIII, is
only 30 minutes from the Grant family home.
Deacon Grant lived through the tribulations in the Boston Archdiocese
during his first three years at the seminary, and he said “it was not pretty.”
But he believes that the sex abuse scandal may be a purification that the
church needed; it has solidified his calling to work for vocations once
he becomes a parish priest in South Carolina.
He hopes one day to start a Serra Club in this diocese. The national
club’s primary mission is to promote vocations to the religious life and
the priesthood.
Deacon Philip Grant’s home parish is Precious Blood on Pawleys Island.
He considers the parish home, but was thinking of his undergraduate days
40 years ago in a minor seminary of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Boston
when he said: “They say you can’t go home again. You can, but it’s scary.”
Published June 5, 2003
The Catholic Miscellany