Hometown: Leonardtown, MD
Year in Formation: Temporarily Professed – 4th Year in Vows
High School: Leonardtown High School, 2014
College: University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN), 2018
College Major: Civil Engineering
Graduate School: University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN)
Graduate Degree: M.Div.
Patron Saint: St. Maximilian Kolbe, His life of faith culminated in laying down his life for another. “There is no greater love than to lay down your life for your friends” (John 15:13)
Favorite Books: The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom
Favorite Music: John Prine, Dido, Otis Redding
Hobbies: Conversation, spending time outside, writing
Most Memorable Prayer/Liturgy you have Attended: 2020 Triduum at the Holy Cross Novitiate in Cascade, Colorado (during the beginning of the Pandemic)
Favorite Way to Pray: Sitting listening to God in an empty chapel
Favorite Devotion: Sacred Heart of Jesus
What Drew you to Holy Cross:The witness of the religious I came to know — particularly the joyful witness. There was also one priest who said frequently, “I love being a priest.” I had never heard that stated so succinctly, clearly, and strongly. The centrality of hope and the cross also drew me, but it is really still in part a mystery, one that I am grateful for.
Your Vocation Story: My vocation lived well is a response to the call of the God who loved me first. This story is best framed as a particular call of love. This call is one that came from within and without. Within, meaning realizations in my heart about myself. Without, meaning experiences in my life, conversations, and encounters of great meaning. Both were guided by the Holy Spirit. As an undergrad at Notre Dame, this coming to understand my vocation was aided by a number of Holy Cross religious who, by their joyful witness and accompaniment, beckoned me to follow and join a band of men who were to be a family. The desire to join religious life and seminary formation became unavoidable, to the point of finding peace with following Jesus in this way. At the core of my vocation as a Holy Cross religious (and seminarian) are the two great and interrelated desires of my life: to have great intimacy with the One God and to respond to the cry of the poor, who bear the face and bodies of Jesus Christ.
Ways that you resonate with the Holy Cross charism, “Educators in the Faith”: Holy Cross places education at the center of its mission. The education, though, is not merely about instructing minds but shaping hearts. It is precisely this complete idea of education that I believe in so strongly. In Holy Cross, our mission and life is about preparing people for resurrection through the work of education. When educating, we are to show preference for those who have received less, as Fr. Moreau writes: “If at times you show preference to any young person, it should be the poor, those who have no one else to show them preference, those who have the least knowledge, those who lack skills and talent, and those who are not Catholic or Christian. If you show them greater care and concern it must be because their needs are greater and because it is only just to give more to those who have received less” (Moreau’s Christian Education). The educators are to act as God acts, offering ample paths (of learning) particularly for the least talented and most troubled students. This missionary spirit of Educating in the Faith is about allowing Christ to live in us, that through His love and grace all of God’s children may come to have bright minds and warm hearts.
One aspect of Holy Cross spirituality that speaks to you the most and why: Brokenness is easy to spot these days, in ourselves, in our families, in our country, in our world, and in our Church itself. Knowing and – more deeply – believing that the Cross is to be our Hope is the realization that this suffering and pain do not have the last word. This last word, the only Word, is Christ, who in his dying on the Cross has conquered sin and death. “Ave Crux Spes Unica” encompasses so much: to realize the pain and brokenness in the lives of others and to say that this very experience, in light of Christ, remains our hope. The uniqueness of this message becomes evident in Moreau’s CL 34: “Afflictions, reverses, loss of friends, privations of every kind, sickness, even death itself, ‘the evil of each day,’ and the sufferings of each hour – all these are but so many relics of the sacred wood of the true cross that we must love and venerate. We must enclose these precious souvenirs in a reliquary made of charity that is patient, resigned, and generous, and which, in union with the divine master, suffers all things and supports all things.”
Favorite Verse: “We are fools on Christ’s account, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are held in honor, but we in disrepute.” – 1 Corinthians 4:10
Favorite Quote: “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
How can visitors to this page pray for you? Pray for my trust in Divine Providence.