My Story
My path to the seminary began at home on our small family farm just north of Hazelton. The seeds of faith were planted at an early age in the events of everyday life – from our daily chores around the farm, to the rosary at night in our living room, and Mass on Sunday in our small parish church. Following my high school years, I attended Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio where I not only studied political science and philosophy, but also found the fertile soil in which my faith was able to take root and grow. The classes challenged and expanded my mind, opening it to the greater truth, while the deep friendships and vibrant spiritual life of the university fanned a flame within my heart to live and spread the Gospel.
After college, I was blessed with the opportunity to return to North Dakota where I taught morality at St Mary’s Central High School and religion at Christ the King Middle School, and also worked with the youth group at Cathedral parish. My year of teaching and ministering to the youth had its challenges, but through these flowed the abundance of God’s grace and a great sense of peace; I knew that I was exactly where the Lord wanted me, doing the work that He had prepared. My time back in North Dakota ended after only one year, as I was accepted for graduate philosophy studies in England. There was something tugging at my heart though that desired a retreat into silence – which I found at the Broomtree Retreat Center on the plains of South Dakota. The eight days of prayer, silence, and spiritual direction left me greatly refreshed and appreciative of God’s grace in my life. And though no serious notion of the priesthood had yet made itself present to me, I believe that it was the clarity that came from those days of silence that allowed God’s Call to rise up and take hold. For after only a few months in England, it became very clear where the desires of my heart had been leading me. I now find myself immersed in seminarian life, in love with the Church, and discerning God’s Call to serve his people of western North Dakota as a priest of Jesus Christ.
