Deacon Joseph Samuel DeMarzo III admits he was “treading water” after high school. A Chatham native, he took some community college courses half-heartedly. He worked on job sites for his father’s construction business.
“I felt empty and unhappy. I didn’t have God, the Church, or prayer in my life. I wasn’t doing anything fulfilling. I needed to do something about it,” said Deacon DeMarzo, now 31 years old. “Then, I experienced a movement within myself to go after God.”
One evening, Deacon DeMarzo engaged in a deep faith conversation during a visit to St. Paul Inside the Walls in Madison with Brian Honsberger, executive director of the Paterson Diocesan Evangelization Center. He began attending events at St. Paul and Saturday evening Masses at the Discalced Carmelite Sisters’ monastery in Morristown.
Click here to subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
“I looked forward to Carmel’s Saturday night Masses more than seeing friends. My soul plugged into God,” said Deacon DeMarzo, now a diocesan transitional deacon. Then, a question appeared to him seemingly out of nowhere in 2013: Should I be a priest? “One day, in the back of St. Paul’s chapel, I thought, ‘I guess this is it. There’s nothing more to find. What’s the “more” I’m looking for?’ That drove me to search for more.”
Then, Deacon DeMarzo embarked on a long journey of vocation with God and answered the Lord’s call to the priesthood. Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney will ordain Deacon Brendon John Harfmann and Deacon DeMarzo as diocesan priests during a Mass on Saturday, June 7, at 10 a.m. in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Paterson. He will celebrate his first Mass as a priest on Sunday, June 8, at 11 a.m. at his parish, Corpus Christi in Chatham Township.
Deacon DeMarzo said he’s “excited” about his priestly ordination. He graduated from Holy Apostles College and Seminary in 2019 and Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in 2024.
“As a priest, I want to bring people the light of Christ — love, hope, joy, and life — into their times of suffering. The world thirsts for God. I will be happy to help people satisfy that thirst in Jesus. I will stay close to him in the Eucharist, his Word, and his Blessed Mother,” Deacon DeMarzo said.
As a youth, Deacon DeMarzo didn’t practice the faith, even though his parents, Joe and Deborah, raised him and his three sisters as Catholics.
“I did have prayerful moments. I realize now that God was looking at me while I looked away,” Deacon DeMarzo said. He served as a retreat leader at Corpus Christi. He graduated from Chatham High School in 2012.
Later, a priest friend in the Paterson Diocese urged Deacon DeMarzo to “look for a personal relationship with Jesus.”
Deacon DeMarzo conducted pastoral work at St. Lawrence the Martyr Parish in Chester, as well as in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes. After finishing seminary, he took a year off and was assigned to Assumption Parish in Morristown. Deacon DeMarzo spoke with affection about the parish, its school, and its pastor, Msgr. John Hart.
“Father John is a hard-working priest and a man of joy,” Deacon DeMarzo said. He added that he learned about priestly fraternity by sharing a “camaraderie as brothers” with the pastor and Father Krzysztof Tyszko, Assumption’s parochial vicar. “Assumption was like being in a big family.”
