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As a small boy Father Michael Achanyi used sliced bananas as a passable stand-in for the host when he played Mass with his friends in his native Cameroon. That’s how long he’s wanted to be a priest.
In a little more than a week he will be ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of New York.
“Even as a little kid we would mimic the priest,” he told CNY. “Me and my friends would take bananas and cut them round and make a little host out of it. And we would go to our grandparents and take a cloth and bore a hole in it to feel like a chasuble. As early as seven years old, I was an altar server. This is what I wanted to do, serve Mass.
“So the desire has always been there.”
He says he never seriously wavered from that plan except briefly when he was in college and he thought about possibly going into business management or a similar career. But the thought of becoming a priest never went away.
Father Achanyi, 33, is the son of Francis Takdr and Margaret Achanyi. His mother died in 1994 when he was 14. His father died in 2001. His grandmother mostly raised him and his little sister, Alice.
“It was a difficult time,” he acknowledged. “I learned how to become my own man, how to lean on God. There were so many people of God that were supporting me all the way.”
He fondly recalls the time he spent at the local parish as an altar server. He remembers accompanying the priests as they made their visits to minister to people in outlying areas. His admiration for priests grew.
Though he couldn’t know it at the time, his desire to become a priest would eventually bring him to the United States. He was a young seminarian teaching school when he met Father Kizito Thompson, an American Trappist monk of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance, who was a chaplain at the all-girls school. The two became friends, and when Father Thompson returned to the United States he recommended his friend for the Archdiocese of New York.
“I never really thought about leaving home,” Father Achanyi said. “But I had to be open to the Spirit and I trusted this is where God wanted me to be. I felt like he was leading me to the United States. It was a leap in the dark. I was leaving home for the first time. But I trusted if he was bringing me here he certainly has something for me.
“My being here working for the people of America is God’s plan for my life. I may not be an American but this is my home. This is my diocese.”
Life is different than in Cameroon, but he has adjusted thanks to the support he has received at St. Joseph’s Seminary. “It’s been a good experience because it has really helped me get in touch with myself,” he said. “Coming here and studying here has solidified what I already knew about myself.”
He admits he’s looking ahead to his ordination with some trepidation. When Cardinal Dolan recently visited St. Joseph’s he met the young deacon one-on-one and gave him some advice, which Father Achanyi took to heart.
“He told me, ‘Michael, you should never lose the awe of the priesthood.’ I just found it very profound,” he said, “I am looking forward to this. But at the same time I am open that God is leading me through all this. He will give me the strength necessary.”
Father Achanyi’s first Mass will be at Holy Rosary Church in the Bronx on Sunday, May 25 at 1 p.m.
