From the Desk of Fr. Mike

March 23, 2025

     Throughout my life I have been able to grow in my faith, with the gift of God’s grace. There were times where I was aware of God’s grace guiding me. There were times in my life when I went through the “practice of the Faith” even if I didn’t feel the presence of God. Upon looking back, I was able to recognize how God’s hand and God’s grace were present even if I did not recognize it at the time.

When I was in college, the Newman Centers on campus were just as important, if not more important, to me in my faith development than my home parish when I was a child. While in college I was able to enter into conversations with the priests assigned to the Newman Centers, learn from them and know of their support in the midst of some challenges I was facing in college while trying to be faithful to God.

I was very active in the Newman Center. I was also very engaged with college life on campus. One of my part time jobs during college was working as a bouncer and bartender at the local college bar across the street from the administration buildings. When talking with the priest from the Newman Center, he shared that he was planning a retreat the weekend of St. Patrick’s Day. I asked him if he really wanted to do that? Wouldn’t another weekend be better than St Patrick’s Day weekend? He was committed in the decision he was making. He asked me what I was going to do. After reflecting, I answered, “I guess I am going on the retreat that you are leading.” A slight smile came across his face as I left his office.

I remember the retreat from March 1985 almost as if it was yesterday. Forty years ago, I was finishing my college education. College professors were helpful in securing interviews for me with major corporations for my first job out of college. The weeks were passing quickly, and before long I would be a college graduate.

At the same time, I was listening to a persistent voice inside my heart encouraging me to consider looking into seminary. Actually, while interviewing for a first job out of college, I was also visiting the seminary, learning about what was necessary to apply, receiving the support of my home pastor, and living the life of a typical college student, months away from graduation, an important milestone.

It was during the retreat, on Saturday, March 16, 1985, late in the evening, in the midst of a powerful prayer service, I clearly heard God loving me, blessing me, and assuring me to pursue the seminary with full energy and commitment. That retreat ended, and I was blessed with a new conviction and openness to God, at work in a wonderful new way in my life. I am very glad that the priest of the Newman Center offered students a chance to retreat on St. Patrick’s Day weekend of 1985.

I was supported by family, friends, relatives, and my home pastor in all of the processes of applying for admission into the graduate school of theology of the Archdiocese of Chicago, Mundelein Seminary of University of St. Mary of the Lake. Actually, the only person who wasn’t excited to hear about my interest in applying for the seminary was my college girlfriend. I learned then that you cannot please everyone no matter how hard you try. I was accepted into the seminary. I graduated from college without a job.

It was in the summer of 1985, before beginning seminary in August that my home pastor reached out to the pastor of our Sharing Parish and asked if they may have a summer job for a parishioner who would be starting seminary at the end of the summer. It was in the Summer of 1985 that I worked at my home parish’s Sharing Parish, St. Patrick’s in Lake Forest, cleaning the small church, (in the summer of 1985 it was the only church), cutting grass, planting some flowers and began working for the Church prior to beginning my seminary training.

In my final year of college, I started knocking on doors and doors were opening for me in pursuing my vocation. As a student at Mundelein Seminary I had to keep knocking on doors. I would bring to prayer, “Is God still guiding me and calling me to seminary education and maybe priesthood?” I waited for an answer. Some of my classmates were asking the same questions and were leaving Mundelein prior to ordination. I kept knocking, kept praying, and after four years of seminary study and formation, I was ordained a priest to serve the Archdiocese of Chicago.

I am able to share this somewhat lengthy story when someone asks me, when did I choose to become a priest. Other times, when asked, I respond with, “This morning when I woke up and got out of bed!”

In this Lenten season I pray for your children and grandchildren, away from home, away from St. Mary’s. It is my prayer that their local Newman Center or parish is helping them stay close to God as they study and pursue their vocation in life.

May the hope we find in our Lord and Savior grow and mature in our Lenten practices,

Past Letters: