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I was a rising junior at Georgia Tech when I traded in my letter jacket for a black cassock. It wasn’t easy to say goodbye to my beloved Yellow Jackets and my role as college mascot. I had learned to walk like Buzz, dance like Buzz, think like Buzz. Now I’d have to hang up my stinger and put on Christ.
Eleven years later, by God’s grace, I was ordained a priest on December 15, 2012.
At 32 years old, I am one year away from completing a post-graduate degree in Biblical theology from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome.
I look back on my time in Cheshire with a fondness that words cannot convey. We seminarians would rise from our beds with a holy passion to take on a new day, and by the time my head hit the pillow, I felt the satisfaction of having lived four. We prayed on our knees, worshiped in song, and adored in silence. We read Shakespeare in English, St. Thomas in Latin, and Scripture in Greek. We wrote essays, poems and discourses to be performed on stage. The motivation underlying these endeavors beamed with crystalline clarity. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19). God had not only filled us with joy and entrusted us with a mission, but also immersed us in culture. I never felt so alive!
Alongside the call to the priesthood, an insatiable thirst to know God’s Word swelled up in my heart, but the idea of reading the New Testament in the original Greek seemed out of reach. In Cheshire, however, it was a mountain we were intent to climb.
Evidently, our teachers were as good as I thought they were. I tested out of Greek at the outset of my theological studies in Rome. The fire to know intimately the inspired words of Scripture never went out. After ordination, I enrolled in a license in Biblical theology and have since tasted the joy of studying Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Romans, Galatians and Revelation in the original. This is not a personal trophy I boast about, but a divine gift I marvel at. Talk about treasures in jars of clay!
I honestly do not know in what mission territory I will end up. Perhaps a classroom in the city, or a retreat center in the suburbs, or a sandlot in a small town. All I know is that I want to be ready to deliver the truth of the Gospel, the joy of knowing Jesus, and the salvation he purchased for us on the cross.