Two Minneota High School alumni will be taking the final step to becoming Catholic priests this weekend. Deacon Tanner Thooft and Deacon Joshua Bot, who both attended the Church of St. Edward in Minneota, will be ordained on Saturday.

“It hasn’t really quite hit me yet,” Thooft said Thursday. “After eight years of preparation, I can’t believe it’s already here.”

Bot said getting close to ordination also felt “surreal” for him.

“This has been something that I have thought about from the time I was 7 years old. It has always been something that seemed so far off, but now it is here,” he said. “I’m also just overwhelmed with gratitude for God for getting me here, and for all the people that he has placed in my life to support me on the road.”

Thooft, Bot, and Nathan Hansen of Dassel will all be ordained by Bishop Emeritus John M. LeVoir at the Church of St. Mary in Sleepy Eye. The ordination Mass on Saturday morning will be livestreamed, said a news release from the Catholic Diocese of New Ulm.

Bot is the son of Deacon Bruce Bot and Juanita Bot, of Minneota. Thooft is the son of Scott and Debbie Thooft of Lynd. Both men were part of the Minneota High School class of 2014. Both went on to graduate from the University of St. Thomas in 2018, and both attended the Saint Paul Seminary.

Thooft said he had some different influences in feeling drawn to the priesthood, including his family’s faith and the example of parish priests at St. Edward.

“I saw as a little kid, there was something special about church,” and about the priests he knew, he said.

As he got older, Thooft said he wanted to have a deeper relationship with God.

“I went to seminary to get to know God,” he said. “And I just never got to the point where I thought I needed to leave.”

Bot said the example of priests at St. Edward was also part of the way he was drawn to the priesthood.

“When I was in second grade a priest came to our house for supper, and afterwards I challenged him to a game of chess. He beat me in two moves, which as a child immediately won him my respect,” he said. “After that I started to look at priests as ordinary men, and I began to think that maybe that was something God might be asking me to do.”

Bot said he visited the seminary in eighth grade and high school.

“Eventually I knew God was asking me to go to seminary, but I didn’t know if he was asking me to be a priest. Only about a third of guys who enter seminary become priests,” he said.

Bot said he became sure he wanted to become a priest during a retreat in his third year of seminary. In prayer, he saw he could be at peace and fulfilled as a priest.

“It was as if God was saying, ‘Even if all you had left was me, I would still be enough for you.’ It was at that point that I really trusted God and accepted his calling for me,” he said.

After ordination, the new priests will go to their first assigned parishes, Thooft said. He said he would be going to Sleepy Eye, and also helping at churches in Morgan, Leavenworth and Comfrey.

One of the things Thooft said he was looking forward to was working to bring Christ into the everyday parts of life.

The ordination Mass will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Church of St. Mary in Sleepy Eye. A reception will follow the Mass in the St. Mary’s social room. A livestream of the Mass will be available at the Diocese of New Ulm’s website, dnu.org.