Take 5 with Father: A Man with a Mission
Father Wilson Lucka (NTC/Juan Guajardo)
HE IS: Father Wilson Lucka, TOR, pastor of Holy Trinity Parish in Azle. He was previously parochial vicar of St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Carrollton.
ORDAINED A PRIEST: Fr. Wilson was ordained May 22, 2002 at his home parish, Our Lady of Fatima, in Kerala, India.
GROWING UP: He was raised with his five sisters and two brothers on a tea and coffee farm. He served as an altar boy and remembers praying often with his parents at a nearby monastery. When school ended in 10th grade, he entered a Franciscan seminary because two friends encouraged him.
MISSIONARY MAN: After a year of formation in his hometown, the 16-year-old took his first train trip. He rode the rails for three days with 11 companions and the seminary director to reach Behar in northern India.
“I joined to be a missionary. In this missionary congregation, you go to North India. To go to North India was to go to a different world altogether.”
VOWS: Fr. Wilson made his first profession of vows as a Franciscan on May 31, 1993. “We take vows of obedience, chastity and poverty. But we have everything — that’s the beauty of these vows. There’s nothing we lack. By God’s grace, everything is in abundance.”
LESSONS FROM THE MISSION FIELDS: “Being a missionary priest, you are open to different cultures, open to different languages (he speaks seven!), you are exposed to different parts of the world. You come across the beauty of every culture and group.”
In 2018, when he learned of his assignment to the United States, “I thought about the language, about the culture, that all these things are going to be different. But I was not so anxious or apprehensive about any of this."
TWO FIRSTS: In his 17 years in the priesthood, Fr. Wilson has been a seminary professor, a school principal, and an administrator for his religious order. This is his first time to be a full-time pastor, and he is the first pastor of Holy Trinity, formerly a mission of St. Thomas the Apostle Parish. “It’s new for them and new for me also.”
BEST THING ABOUT BEING A PRIEST: “Saying Mass every day.” And second best? “I meet so many people, come close to so many people. You come into their lives, you come to know about them.”
THE TAKEAWAY: Fr. Wilson wants parishioners to know “God is loving. God is merciful. He is not someone up above, but someone here in concrete life situations.”