Life as a seminarian is TERRIFIC and I'm incredibly excited for those days of ordination ahead of me. The NAC is also a very special place and I'm privileged to be able to study and pray in the shadow of St. Peter and his successor.”

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Feeling unfulfilled, I felt called to join a lay missionary organization of young people called FOCUS, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, who lead college students in learning and living their faith through Bible studies and mentoring students. While spending two years serving the students at the University of Maryland, in College Park, I began to wonder if God was calling me to the priesthood. A spiritual director suggested that I continue my discernment at the seminary, and so I entered in September 2008. I'm currently 26 years old and starting my second-year at Mundelein Seminary in the Pre-theology program.
At Mundelein, I continue to see that the priest is, in many ways, a spiritual physician, not unlike the physician I originally envisioned myself. As a member of the ordination class of 2014, the beauty of the priesthood looms in the distance, but until then I look forward to growing in prayer as I imagine what it would be like to bring people to God and God to people in such an extraordinary way.”

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Due to my Mother being the church organist and pianist, I was highly involved in church through high school, though I always felt something was missing in my faith life. Once on my own in college I drifted away, thinking I didn’t need to attend church to be religious. In my late thirties, in a dating relationship with a Catholic woman, I started going back to church and through the Mass and instruction of Catholic friends I found a richness and fullness in the teachings of the Catholic Church that I felt was missing in my faith life previously. I went through RCIA and came into the Church at the Easter Vigil of 2002.

In 2004 I began to receive the first stirrings of a vocational call, bringing back many memories of my Grandmothers asking me as a child to consider becoming a Methodist minister. In addition, my parish priest, friends and co-workers asked me to consider the priesthood. I fought it for a while as I had a very secure and comfortable life, but eventually felt moved to participate in the INSEARCH Program to discern how I was being called to best serve the Lord and His Church. With the support of my family, friends, co-workers and parish, I entered the Seminary’s Pre-Theology program in the fall of 2007.

In the two years since entering Pre-Theology, all of my fears and trepidations about returning to school and leaving a financially comfortable life have disappeared and I am more at peace as I follow God’s will in my life. The more my life becomes simplified of earthly possessions, and the more focused I become on following God’s will, the happier I am. It is truly a blessing to be allowed to become the person God meant me to be, by following the path he has called me to. If
God continues to call me to the path to the priesthood, I will be ordained in May 2013 at the age of 53—which will be after I receive my AARP card for Senior citizen discounts! God can indeed use broken vessels to do his work on Earth.”

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Almost from the time when I came to the United States I was involved in the life of one of Chicago’s parishes, Holy Trinity Church. For many years I was an altar server and lector. I also became a coordinator for young adult ministry and involved myself in music ministry. My further involvement was participation in the lay ministry formation program offered by the Archdiocese of Chicago called Together In God’s Service. The program prepares lay men and women for professional and vocational involvement in the life of the Church and its Catholic schools.

Among various experiences of God’s presence in my life, young adult prayer group became an instrumental tool in my discernment to the ministry of priesthood. I entered Mundelein Seminary in fall of 2008 to pursue my goal. Currently I am in my second year of the Pre-Theology Program.

As a quick summary I would like to say that a calling to any ministry in the Church begins with a life of prayer and also surrounding oneself, as a support group, with people that truly want to follow Jesus in their lives.”

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During college, I worked at the City of Chicago’s 911 Center as an intern in the Office of Emergency Management. I then began to explore an interest in medicine and started working as a cardiac arrest researcher in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Later, I expanded my research involvement to the study of sepsis, a
severe system-wide immune response to bacterial infection. Graduating from the University of Chicago in 2008 with a concentration in biological sciences, immunology, and psychology, I was confident of a future career as a physician. After college I worked as a research coordinator in the Medical ICU at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

I had often thought about a vocation to priesthood, but dismissed it in favor of married life. However, my but discernment to the priesthood began to build after graduating from college. I sometimes think God may have ‘turned up the volume’ on my call because I wasn’t listening. The climax of this volume change occurred in January 2009, while I was alone at Mass at St. Mary of the Angels parish in Chicago. I was sitting in this enormous, beautiful church by myself listening to the homily. It was a cold night and the heaters were struggling to keep the church warm. All of a sudden, I experienced the most overpowering feeling of my life. I was filled - body and soul - with the desire to become a priest. In that moment, I could not see myself doing anything else with my life. All my other goals - marriage, getting into medical school, and becoming a doctor - paled in comparison to the thought of serving the people of God in the priesthood.

This feeling repeated itself several times in the following months, enough to begin formal discernment with Fr. Joe Noonan. After talking with several priests and spending many hours in prayer, I applied to Mundelein Seminary and I was accepted to begin the pre-theology program the August, 2009. It is humbling to be in the seminary, studying for the Archdiocese of Chicago. My discernment is ongoing and I pray for guidance from the Lord in my vocation every day. It is critical to approach every situation and begin every day with an open, listening heart. To do otherwise would limit my response to God’s continual outpouring of grace.”

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I was born and raised in the Chicagoland area. I lived in a household filled with a spirit of public service. My father is the retired fire chief of my hometown and my mother a nurse who helps run a clinic. My older brother, Joseph, is devoting his life to serving Chicago as a firefighter. As a student at St. Albert the Great, St. Laurence H.S. and Marquette University, I developed an interest in history, government, and public service. Upon graduation, I packed one bag and moved to Washington, D.C. landing on my friends’ couch to follow my dream of a career in service to our nation. I was content with my life in government until the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Washington in April 2009, profoundly impacted my life.

As men discerning can attest, it is often difficult to share our Catholic faith in our respective workplaces. When the Holy Father visited Washington, Catholics were coming out of the woodwork and people were proud to share their Catholic faith. That week, my life was filled with the Holy Spirit and I began to ask myself what was I doing to make a positive impact on the lives of others? This experience resulted in a deepening of my prayer life, daily Mass attendance and active participation in my parish. Overtime, there was something drawing me to the idea of becoming a priest. I thought I was just a regular guy living the ordinary and was confused by why God would be calling me to priesthood. I ignored the call until another priest said to me, “You should go to the seminary and become a priest.” This time I listened.

I look at my discernment as running a long race. Those who successfully train for marathons are not focused on running 26.2 miles all at once, but are focused on their daily running routine. If you are in the process of discernment, focus on developing your relationship with Jesus Christ one day at a time. Pray the rosary, attend Mass daily, find and meet with a spiritual director, and attend discernment events hosted by Fr. Noonan’s office. Taking this daily approach will take the stress out the discernment process and will give you the clarity of what God is calling you to do. You are in my prayers daily.

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Ask any married man why he decided to marry his wife, and no matter how good or how well articulated his reason may be, he knows deep down that to put it into words somehow seems to trivialize it. It inevitably sounds trite, as what he says fails to capture the power of what has been summoned up within him. A vocation is always a response to love, and to listen to the voice of the beloved is the essential move of discernment.

I first truly fell in love with the Lord at World Youth Day in Toronto, Canada, where I recognized for the first time His real presence in the Eucharist. From that day forward, the Eucharist has become the center of my life and spirituality. It is there that I see the Savior who humbled Himself in that most mysterious act of love, and there that I learn how to lay down my life out of love for my brothers and sisters. In His presence, words cease and the heart is left vulnerable to recognize the truth of its creation before God. It is there, in Holy Communion, in Eucharistic Adoration, in silent thanksgiving after Mass, that we are strengthened to respond in love.

You want my advice for discerning a vocation? Fall in love with the Eucharist! God bless you!

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Finally, I gave up searching; I gave up running from myself, and I surrendered to the yearning within me. This led me to recognize my genuine fulfillment in God. Granted, I didn’t know very much about Him so approaching Him, within the context of prayer, felt foreign to me at first. But slowly I began to take an interest in my faith. The more I responded to this calling to live my faith the weaker my yearning became.

“Taste and see that the LORD IS GOOD...” By now I was hooked. I had acknowledged that the only proper response would be a genuine response, a complete response. I stopped looking for God and instead allowed Him to find me; to lead me and guide me. I began meeting with my local parish priest, to whom I will always be indebted. Doing so allowed me to grow stronger with the Lord. I thank God unceasingly for the journey which my life has taken, from my earliest days to my time spent at St. Joseph, growing into my vocation, because it has enabled me to recognize who I am meant to be, a priest. I wouldn’t have been able to do it had I not been surrounded by holy priests, good and sincere brothers-in-vocation and, most importantly, accompanied by Jesus who is always there whether we think it or not.

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