Josh B.

heart. This time of personal prayer during a retreat felt like torture. I couldn’t understand, for the life of me, why I had agreed to spend a weekend of my freshmen year of college with a bunch of Catholic nuts. I didn’t care in the least about my faith, and the suggestion that God was the answer to all my problems was borderline oCensive. Yet, in that place of great darkness, He met me. He called me out of the tomb, and He raised me to new life.

I was raised Catholic, and I have vague memories of finding great joy in living out the faith as a child – going to Mass, singing in the choir, praying with my family. However, the burdens of the world slowly weighed on me. By high school, I had suCered a series of family losses, and I didn’t know how to cope. I was afraid to show my pain to others, but that shame left me with the greatest pain of all: the pain of feeling alone, unloved, abandoned.

One would think that such an army of specialists would be eCective, but any hope of healing quickly dissipated. Mindfulness practices and medications couldn’t reach the existential longing of my heart. I was aching to hear those words: “It is good that you exist,” “You are precious in my eyes,” “I have called you by name,” “You are mine.” No matter how intense the psychological treatment, that thirst to know that I am known and loved couldn’t be satisfied. I still felt alone, as if nobody knew the real me, and if nobody knows me, nobody loves me.

At this point, it was my senior year of high school, and living felt like nothing but a burden. I figured that I would give it one last try – maybe the change of pace that comes with college would make a diCerence. So I began college with a new bounce in my step. I threw myself into various groups, the neuroscience club, the chess club, a soccer 2 group. I made a real eCort to make new friends, and after a few months, there was one place where I didn’t feel so alone: the Catholic campus ministry.

I continued going to Sunday Mass, and I even joined a weekly small group Bible study. That experience of virtuous friendship was a major change for me, but that small taste of communion made my heart ache even more. There was a ministry event that included a talk and a time for Eucharistic Adoration. I showed up – not for Jesus, but for the music that they had played the previous time. Adoration began, and I waited for the music, but there was only silence. I gave it a few more minutes until I realized that there would be no music. I got up to leave, and a sword pierced my heart. I didn’t understand the Eucharistic Presence. I didn’t believe that God was there, gazing on me with mercy and love. But I did know that in that moment, I was walking out on Jesus.

There was only one problem: I had already signed up for a weekend retreat with the campus ministry. The first night consisted of falling asleep during a guided scriptural meditation and observing a small group “discussion” without saying a word. I hated it, but three hours away from campus and without my own car, I was stuck there for the weekend. The next day, there was a talk followed by personal prayer and reflection. During that time of prayer, I figured that I would make the most of this nightmare and spend some time on the nearby beach. So I sat in the sand, watching the waves roll in and out, and I began to pray. For the first time, I expressed my pain and anger to God, not as a complaint that I simply thought to myself but as a genuine cry out to Him. Suddenly, the unbearable weight of my heart lifted. A wave of interior peace washed over me. The image came to mind of the prodigal son returning to his father. I perceived the Father run to me, embrace me, kiss me, and gaze upon me with pure mercy and love. I could feel the joy of that moment, the joy of the son, who had strayed so far, finally coming home. I knew that I had been dead for years, but I also knew that He was breathing new life into me, reclaiming me as His beloved son. This changed everything. For so long, I had felt alone and abandoned. I had come to hate myself, to hate the world, and to hate God. Yet, in this pit of despair, He called me out of darkness into His marvelous light. He gave me not just the outward knowledge but also the inner experience of the most fundamental fact of my existence: that I am known and loved. In that moment, I surrendered everything to Him. I had no idea what to do now, but I knew that the answer to all of the longings of my heart could only be found in Jesus Christ, so I told Him that wherever He would lead me, with the help of His grace, I will follow.

The highlight, the foundation, the strength, and the direction of my every day became the Holy Mass and an hour of Eucharistic Adoration. The Eucharist truly became the source and summit of my daily life. I continually discovered the loving gaze of Jesus under the veil of the Eucharist, and in those moments of encounter, I also came to discover the deeper longings of my heart. One instance of Adoration caught my attention. I suddenly had the strangest thought: “I never want to leave. I could spend eternity here, simply adoring.” I reached for my journal and scribbled in all capital letters: “SEEK COUNSEL!”

Once I overcame the initial fear of opening the door, I scheduled a meeting with the chaplain on campus who happened to be the vocations director of the diocese. I told him that I was experiencing this call to the Eucharist, and I told him that the idea of the priesthood, which would have been laughable just a few months ago, was very attractive to me. With a quiet and gentle joy, he advised me to build my prayer life, persist in virtuous living, and see where the Lord calls me. So I did just that, and my desire only grew. Over time, celebrating the Holy Mass, giving Jesus in the Eucharist to the hungry, pronouncing God’s mercy over the sinner, baptizing the baby, anointing the dying, all of these images became highly appealing to me. After some months of meeting regularly with this priest and growing in my prayer life, I went on a retreat with the diocese intended for young men who were discerning the priesthood, and the Lord made it very clear to me that He was calling me to at least take a step. It wasn’t an extraordinary apparition, nor did I hear the voice of God, but the more I discovered the essence of the priesthood – to be in Persona Christi, to be at the total service of the Bride, the Church, to be an instrument of the graces of the Cross – the more I felt at home, like I was finally where I belonged.

At this point, I knew where I wanted to be: at the Altar with Jesus. The only problem was that I didn’t know how to get there. Although I felt this strong attraction to the priesthood, I couldn’t see myself living as a diocesan priest. I greatly desired community, the support of brothers, a communal prayer life, and I could not imagine fulfilling my vocation without the assurance of significant time each day spent adoring Jesus in the silent gaze of the Eucharist. Knowing nothing more of religious orders than the names of popular communities, I began to explore religious life.

As soon as I returned to school, I met with the campus chaplain and proceeded to email the vocations director of the Brothers of Saint John. Within a few days, we talked on the phone, and the phone call lasted over an hour. I could tell this wasn’t about recruitment. This brother was focused on getting to know me as a brother in Christ and helping me seek the Lord’s will. As he described the charism and the daily life of the community, it perfectly matched the context of priesthood that I deeply desired – a non-negotiable daily hour of Eucharistic Adoration, a life of fraternal charity with brothers, communal prayer, a life of mission focused on the bringing people to encounter Jesus for themselves, especially in the Eucharist. Within a month, I was oC to New Jersey to visit one of their priories for the weekend, and one month later I was in Texas to visit the priory of the vocations director. During each visit, I found myself filled with peace, joy, and zeal for the Lord, but most importantly, I felt free. I felt like this was the place where I could freely seek the Lord with all my heart and truly fulfill my call to holiness, to deepen my relationship with Christ and to be a witness to others of that universal call to intimacy with Him. By the end of that spring semester of my sophomore year of college, I told the vocations director that I was ready to drop out of college and enter discernment with the community. God doesn’t always make things so easy. The community told me that since I had only met the brothers a few months ago and was two years into college, they wanted me to take the time to finish my degree first. The heaviness of that cross immediately weighed on me. As a psychology major at a public university, I was profoundly unhappy with my current education, and I felt entirely ready to leave school and discern religious life. I couldn’t understand why I had to wait. All I could do was trust that God knew better. God knew better indeed. Being told to finish my degree forced me to face the lack of fruitful education I was currently experiencing. I decided to search for a Catholic university where I could trust the psychology being taught, and I found Franciscan University of Steubenville. The expenses of a private school were unthinkable, but Franciscan oCered an online psychology program at a realistic cost, so I moved back home and worked to finish my degree.

On February 11th, 2026, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, holding the hand of our Blessed Mother, I entered Postulancy with the Brothers of Saint John. Since then, as I adore Jesus in the Eucharist each evening, I am filled with a Divine Love which touches the deepest longings of my heart, that thirst which had brought me great agony until I found the Fount of Living Water. I want to spend the rest of my life drawing from this Fount of Salvation and sharing this life-changing Gift, this priceless Treasure, with the world. I don’t know where He will lead me. All I can do is take the next step, but whatever step that is, I can say with absolute confidence: “The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall want for nothing,” for He Himself is my inheritance.