St Mary
157 High St
Williamston, MI 48895
United States

Though I spent my first few years in downtown Lansing, my family being involved in the Church of the Resurrection, we moved out to Perry, Michigan shortly after my youngest sibling was born. We transitioned to St. Mary’s in Morrice where we were parishioners for about ten years before we made another shift to St. Mary’s in Williamston. All the while, my family was involved in the Work of Christ Community in East Lansing - an ecumenical, charismatic community in the Sword of the Spirit - which had a profoundly positive impact on my experience of the Faith growing up. I had a plethora of exemplary men and women witnessing the Faith to me, in the Church and in the Work of Christ Community, throughout my childhood. As a result, I knew from early on that Jesus Christ should be the center of my life. I knew this, but by the time I entered middle school, my life had become divided between the Faith and the World. Halfway through high school, I had a powerful series of encounters with Jesus where he let me know that he wanted my whole life - not just a part of it - and that I had a choice to make. A prodigal son myself, who’d been given everything and exchanged it for dissatisfaction, I began to experience the prodigal, lavish, reckless love of my Father who had already chosen for me long before I thought to choose for him. It was about this time when I first considered giving my life to Christ and his Church in Priesthood. What I found in the years to follow - in the rest of high school and during my time at The University of Michigan - was that the initial choice I made was only the first of many. I’ve discovered that giving your life to Jesus is neither abstract nor once-and-done; rather, it consists of the concrete responses we make to his grace daily. As we begin to choose for him, starting with small practical responses to what we perceive he’s saying to us, we’ll find that he’s already directing us where he wants to bring us. We can do this without fear because what he wants to do with our lives is far more adventurous, meaningful, exciting and joy-filled than anything we could come up with on our own. Follow Jesus, and you’ll end up exactly where you need to be.