On March 8, 2026, I visited the St. André Bessette Postulant Formation House in Bugembe, Jinja, Uganda. We drove through the gate and entered a lush green garden area with a hundred-yard driveway curving past the chapel and dormitory to a parking lot outside the dining hall. I was expecting a quick greeting and conversation with the rector, just a small opportunity to visit the property and get a sense of potential grant needs from us in the Holy Cross Mission Center that could support their formation program.
Bro. Patrick Mugabo, C.S.C., one of the formators on staff there, warmly greeted me and Fr. Arnold Jawiambe, C.S.C., and showed us into the dining area. To my surprise, the men in formation were alerted to our arrival, dropped what they were doing, hanging their clothes and tending the vegetable gardens, and entered the dining space to greet us.
As they entered the dining area where we were to meet, the approximately 30 Holy Cross postulants were all rather silent and subdued, not the raucous bunch of young men I was used to seeing as a high school educator earlier in my career. Fr. Arnold and I prompted them to loosen up (in a brotherly, jovial way). For my part, I put on my old teacher hat and whispered to one postulant, “Who is the most fun guy in this group, the jokester?” He took a moment, whether to comprehend my American accent or give thought to the question I do not know, and said, “Oh, him!”
I called that guy up, razzed him a little in front of his housemates by saying, “Oh, this guy’s the troublemaker!” before handing him my iPhone and asking him to take a selfie with fellow postulants behind him. They had fun with it, as the photo shows!
As is customary, I was then invited as an honored guest to speak to the young men assembled. Though this is the custom in Uganda and other Holy Cross ministries I’ve visited in other countries, it always pulls me a bit outside my comfort zone. What do you say to future priests and brothers? Moreover, what do you say as an American and a layperson to potential priests and religious brothers from East Africa? Something came over me, perhaps the Holy Spirit, and I had a spontaneous idea about what I could say. Here is approximately what I said to these men who may take final vows in Holy Cross in the next decade:
“Thank you all for welcoming me. My name is Michael Jezewak, and I serve under Fr. Tom Eckert, C.S.C., in the Holy Cross Mission Center of the U.S. Province.
“I am not a priest or brother; [holding up my ring finger] I am a husband and father of three boys whom I miss very much. So, although I have never discerned a vocation as a religious, I have discerned a vocation to married life—and not just ‘marriage’ as an abstraction but to one particular marriage to one particular woman. I once read a theologian who explained that spouses do not have a vocation simply to ‘marriage’ generally but to a particular marriage, to a particular spouse.
“As I was dating my wife there came a moment when I realized that having her in my life made me more loving, more compassionate, more forgiving, more sacrificial in the model of Christ than I was with anyone else. This was a defining moment for me, one that helped me know she was the woman God was calling me to marry.
“Likewise, you are not discerning a vocation to ‘the priesthood’ or ‘the [religious] brotherhood’—you are discerning a particular priesthood or brotherhood in the Congregation of Holy Cross in the Province of East Africa, [gesturing to Fr. Arnold and Bro. Patrick] with these finally professed men who wear the Cross & Anchors on their chests. And the question I invite you to consider is:
“Will you be better able to love, to show compassion, to give of yourself as Christ did by living out the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience as a Holy Cross priest or brother?”
“Thank you all for welcoming me and for the seriousness and intentionality that you bring to your discernment. May God bless you, and please know of my and Fr. Tom’s continued prayers for your discernment of God’s particular call in your life.”
Such a personal memory may be best suited for a personal Substack (which I blessedly do not have) and may even be received as a bit of “oversharing” for an institutional platform such as this. However, my travels to Holy Cross’s international ministries in Uganda, Bangladesh, and Peru, however limited, have consistently invited me into a level of integration—personal, professional, spiritual—that is at odds with the Western impulse to partition ourselves and our ways of responding to God’s love. So I offer this reflection here.
Ave Crux, Spes Unica! Hail the Cross, Our Only Hope!
May we lay people, with the Congregation, continue to cross “borders of every sort” (Constitution 2:17 of the Congregation of Holy Cross) to find the wholeness that God offers us.
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Readers are invited now to reflect on what they would share with the men in formation with the Congregation of Holy Cross.
- What would you say?
- How would you relate to them?
- What wisdom do you, whether a lay person or a professed religious, have that might point them on in their discernment?
You are invited to share your written reflections with the Holy Cross Mission Center by emailing them to hcmc@holycrossusa.org. We look forward to reading them!
Provided by Michael Jezewak, assistant director of the Holy Cross Mission Center, April 2026.
