Father Ryan Lerner is a man in motion – serving as both the new Chaplain of STM and as the Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Hartford don’t allow him to stand still, and even in his free time, Father Ryan runs, training for the Vermont City Marathon in Burlington this Memorial Day weekend.
Running has framed much of Fr. Ryan’s life – when we spoke on a sunny April day against a background of bells from Harkness tower, he told me the running started early, taking him from high school to beyond when the Trinity College track coach asked him to apply after watching one Friday’s race. Since then, Fr. Ryan has served as an assistant coach at Trinity and worked as a nursing home administrator, all the while moving towards a vocation in the Catholic priesthood.
Father Ryan wasn’t raised exclusively Catholic. Growing up, his father was Jewish, but his mother’s Catholic heritage, combined with the influence of a Catholic elementary school education, led him and his twin sister Meg to convert to Catholicism when they were twelve years old. A year later, his father followed suit, and his family grew in their faith.
Catholicism seeped into most aspects of Fr. Ryan’s life, even when he was away from church. He’d often pray before a test when he was in high school, and he tells me that religion followed him into sports as well. “It was funny because, before a big track meet, you’d have 100 people on the track team, and the captains would ask me to pray for our team,” Fr. Ryan says, smiling.
He says that ever since his conversion, he would often wonder if entering the priesthood was part of God’s plan for him. This thought became more focused in college after meeting a homeless man outside of a party at Northeastern University. “Listening to this man tell his story I could not help but think that this is Christ,” he told me, recounting a profound feeling he had experienced after chatting with the man for about forty minutes.
After graduating from Trinity College in Hartford, CT, with a B.A. in history and religion, and a M.A. in Public Policy followed by three years of coaching cross country and track, he began a career in nursing home administration. In the nursing home, while working among the elderly, the poor, the sick, the rehabilitating, the terminally ill and their families and caregivers, the final “yes” came. “Each day, on my way into work, I would pray the rosary while mentally preparing for whatever awaited me,” he says. “On the way home, I would pray for those who were entrusted to our care and for their caregivers. I found myself contemplating if this was what I should be doing with my life.” On one of those days, Fr. Ryan contacted the vocation director for the Archdiocese of Hartford, and after an in-depth application process he entered the seminary for priestly formation. After six years of study, two years at St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers, NY, and four at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., Ryan Lerner of Manchester, CT, became Father Ryan Lerner of the Archdiocese of Hartford in 2014.
After his ordination, Fr. Ryan served as Parochial Vicar at St. Margaret’s in Madison, CT. He then served as Secretary to Most Reverend Leonard P. Blair, Archbishop of Hartford, for three-and-a-half years. In November 2015, he became the Vice Chancellor of the archdiocese, and in December of 2016, he was appointed Chancellor. Appointed by the Archbishop in March of 2019, he officially became the eighth Catholic Chaplain at Yale University on June 1, 2019.
“I’m totally amazed by STM,” Fr. Ryan tells me, calling the community very “vibrant, welcoming and intentional about being Church.” He particularly points out the dedication of STM students to the faith. “From the moment I arrived here on the first Friday of March to participate in an undergraduate mini-retreat, I have found the students here, both undergraduates and graduates, to be excited and deeply engaged, both spiritually and intellectually, in their Catholic faith.” He continues, “I love the constant buzz of activity in the Golden Center. In addition to everything they have on their plates, our students are so active at STM: in volunteering their time, in serving the local community, in spending time with God in prayer."
While he spends most of his time on pastoral duties, he reserves at least an hour a day to run. He shares this love of running with his twin sister. Almost as important as prayer and the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, that one hour for running is an opportunity to be free of an electronic device, to clear his mind, to reflect on the previous day, to plan for the day ahead and to pray. Running has also been a source of camaraderie for Fr. Ryan, as at least once a week, he runs with a small group of friends and former high school teammates, training together and helping each other to prepare for road races and marathons while chatting about life, work and family.
Fr. Ryan is hopeful for the future, wishing to continue Father Bob’s legacy. Since his arrival in March, he’s been hosting meetings with students and community members alike, getting a sense of where STM stands today and how its mission can be made more accessible. “My big thing right now is learning and listening,” Fr. Ryan says, “my door is open and I’d love to hear from people: How is their experience at STM? What can we do to continue our mission and bring it to the next level? Not only here on Park Street, but for New Haven, for Yale.”
