Hometown: Madison, WI
Year in Formation: Temporarily Professed – 3rd Year in Vows
High School: Madison Memorial High School (Madison, Wisconsin), 2003
College: University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN), 2007
College Major: Political Science
Graduate School: University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN), 2014
Graduate Degree: M.Ed.
Previous Jobs: Theology teacher at Bishop Kelley High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Political Assistant at National Right to Life in Washington, D.C.
Patron Saint: St. Thomas More. He integrated humanism and Catholicism during tumultuous times, and bravely witnessed to the truth of the faith.
Favorite Movie: A Man for All Seasons, Dunkirk, O Brother Where Art Thou, Napoleon Dynamite
Favorite Books: The Brothers Karamazovby Fyodor Dostoyesvky, The Divine Comedyby Dante Alighieri, The Great Gatsbyby F. Scott Fitzgerald, Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, After Virtueby Alasdair MacIntyre
Favorite Music: The Hamilton soundtrack, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, Matt Maher
Hobbies: Cycling, hiking, camping, running, cooking, reading, writing, following politics
Your Discernment Story: Around my First Communion, I started wondering whether God might be calling me to be a priest. My confirmation and then my undergrad years at Notre Dame kept this question alive. During my senior year, I joined the Holy Cross vocations pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi. It was there I received a powerful and prayerful (yet perplexing!) sense of vocation to the priesthood. God was very patient with me; rather than actively pursuing this call further, I went to work in Washington, D.C., after graduation.
But this persistent tug on my heart never went away. I spent some time as a novice at a Benedictine monastery, but it was not the place for me. Then I taught for eight years at a Catholic high school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, all the while growing in important ways. It was there, in 2019, that I received from God the interior freedom I had sought to return to active discernment of priesthood and religious life. And now, in a way I have returned to where I started: to the community and the ministry of Holy Cross, where I am even now growing as a man with hope to bring. Thanks be to God!
Ways that you resonate with the Holy Cross charism, “Educators in the Faith”: Teaching the faith through the Alliance for Catholic Education has brought me great joy and has inspired me to discern with the Congregation of Holy Cross. I love that Holy Cross schools awaken and deepen the faith of young men and women from so many different walks of life around the world, and I am grateful to have been part of this mission.
One aspect of Holy Cross spirituality that speaks to you the most and why: The Cross as our only hope (Ave Crux, Spes Unica) really speaks to me. It is through Christ;s sacrificial love on the Cross, and one’s own death to self, that our life springs forth most abundantly.
Favorite Quote: “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” – John 10:10
Favorite Bl. Basil or St. André Quote: “Love causes love.” – Bl. Basil Moreau