When Father Vic Ivers, already long retired, celebrated his last Mass at St. Joseph Parish in Libertyville in 2014, he stopped at the end of Mass, took off his shoes, laid them in front of the altar and said, “So now who will fill these shoes?”

Then he processed out, leaving the shoes behind.

His powerful gesture did not go unnoticed.

“The story spread very quickly throughout the archdiocese about this bold move that this priest did, this call to vocations,” said Father Rob Ryan, associate pastor of St. Joseph and Francis Xavier Parish in Wilmette and a member of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s vocations team.

Ivers, who had been serving at St. Joseph in retirement, died later that year at age 95. Shortly thereafter, the archdiocese’s “Who Will Fill These Shoes?” vocation event began.

The event, sponsored by the archdiocese’s Office for Vocations, aims to give young men from 13 into their 20s a glimpse of the priesthood by inviting them to the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary.

The young men and their families participate in Mass, the rosary, a eucharistic procession, lunch and an enthusiastic game of dodgeball.

About 60 young men attended this year’s event on Nov. 29.

During that time, they spent time with priests and seminarians from the archdiocese.

“What’s really beautiful is that you see everything from people who are there because their friends invited them and because there was going to be dodgeball to people who are, like, all in,” Ryan said. “It’s also really beautiful to have the parents there to see the camaraderie between the men and the camaraderie between the priests.”

The young men are introduced to what it means to be a seminarian or a priest by interacting freely with the priests and seminarians and asking any questions they might have.

Some of the young participants have come more than once, and Ryan said he’s seen them engaging more with their faith and attending other vocation events, such as the Quo Vadis Days summer camp.

But there is no pressure on the young men to commit to anything, Ryan explained.

“It’s really, ‘Come and see the seminary. Come and have Mass with the bishop. Come and experience a eucharistic procession and adoration. And come and meet seminarians and priests and have some fun and meet us as people, not just as the people that you see up in the sanctuaries on Sundays,” he said.

It’s all about being open to God’s will in their lives.

“Even if it’s just getting guys to recognize that the Lord does call men like them — even if they are not necessarily called — that’s planting seeds for the future,” Ryan said. “It’s not just about the numbers. It’s about reinvigorating the Catholic imagination about how the world works and how the Lord works in our lives.”

During this year’s “Who Will Fill These Shoes?” event, Chicago seminarian Daniel Garcia made himself available for questions from the Spanish-speaking parents of young men discerning the priesthood. The majority of participants this year were Latino, he said, and many of the parents did not speak English.

“The biggest concern was the fact that their kids are in high school, and if they wanted to enter seminary, they would have to go to our minor seminary [St. John Vianney Seminary], which is located in Minnesota,” Garcia said. “That was a big hesitation to support their child’s vocation. … Culturally, that’s very common. In the Hispanic culture, it’s not very common for someone to go out of state and leave their family behind.”

Garcia encouraged the families to have their children take part in one of the trips to Minnesota that the vocations office arranges so they can see the campus of St. John Vianney and get a feel for what the environment looks like.

Quinn Vitu, 16, attended the event with Ryan.

For him, eucharistic adoration and dodgeball were the highlights of the day.

“I would recommend it to any Catholic I know who practices their faith, even if they practice it just a little bit, because it’s a really great opportunity to see what being a seminarian is like and meeting others who share similar values as you,” he said.

The event also increased Vitu’s desire to share the Word of God with others, he said.

“The event really showed me how important and great it is to do so,” Vitu said. “It also helped me with what kind of path I want to take in life. Before this event, I knew very little about the process of becoming a priest, and I honestly didn’t even know the seminary was also a university. So it definitely helped me understand that whole process more.”