Photo provided by Fr. Tyler Kreipke, C.S.C.
Opportunities abound in Holy Cross. I’m currently wrapping up my third year of teaching engineering at the University of Portland, and I have found great joy and fulfillment in my work. I often share with people about how much I love the variety of my work. I enjoy moving from lecture preparation to homily writing, or from helping students troubleshoot projects to having spiritual conversations with them. Each day brings a new set of opportunities to engage in my work of building up the Kingdom.
But my current assignment isn’t the only thing I’ve done since I entered formation 9 years ago. I’ve been sent to Mexico, Portland, Phoenix, Colorado Springs, and all over South Bend. I’ve gotten to serve as a chaplain to grade schoolers, spend time in secluded prayer on a mountainside, rigorously study the truths of our faith with some of the best theologians in the world, bring communion to the sick and the elderly, welcome and serve the poor, teach the basics of our faith in Spanish to those entering the Church, and much more. I’ve lived in communities with over 40 men in the house, and communities as small as three.
I’ve been able to serve the Church and the Congregation in so many varied ways and contexts in my relatively short time with Holy Cross. As I was coming to the end of my initial formation, I would often reflect on how vastly different some of my ministry assignments were. And yet, for all the diversity of living situations, geographical locations, and types of work, I found that they were all accompanied by a similar sense of joy and purpose.
As I reflected further, I realized that the deep, resonant joy, the sense of opportunity and hope that charged so many of those mornings, and the sense of fulfillment that helped get me through difficult moments, were grounded not so much in the work itself, but in the direction in which the work was aimed, and in the way it was lived out.
Running as a common thread through all of those different ministry experiences was the Holy Cross way of life. Our way of life includes common prayer and common table — the commitment of coming together, however many or few we were, to spend time with Jesus in prayer and spend time with each other, sharing in each other’s joys and helping to bear each other’s burdens. Our way of life includes daily prayer — withdrawing from the cares of the world to spend time with God — and coming back often to Him throughout the day in the Liturgy of the Hours. As Bl. Basil Moreau put it, we are invited daily to “consider with the eyes of faith the greatness of our mission, and the wonderful good that we can accomplish.”
There are many ways to serve God and many types of work to which He could call us. It is important to reflect on the type of work we feel drawn to, but I believe that it is equally important to attend to the way in which He calls us to live out that work.
By Fr. Tyler Kreipke, C.S.C.
Provided by the Vocations Office, April 22, 2026.
